


Holdwine and the Steward, And Other Unfinished LOTR Stories

by Rubynye



Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2005-02-04
Updated: 2010-06-16
Packaged: 2017-11-02 11:26:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 20,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Assorted LOTR Unfinished Tales</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Holdwine and the Steward

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant for one of [](http://marigoldg.livejournal.com/profile)[**marigoldg**](http://marigoldg.livejournal.com/)'s challenges. I think it fizzled largely due to the first person voice; I usually use first person when I have a clear reason in my head to do so, and I found that in the end I didn't.

Tonight, I think I'll post the ones I have less hope for.

**Posted for this year's WIP Amnesty Weekend**

Title: Holdwine and the Steward  
Rating: As it is: G. As it would have been: Perhaps PG for discussion of violence.  
Pairing: Merry, Faramir/Eowyn. [Merry/Pippin inteneded]  
Notes: This was meant for one of [](http://marigoldg.livejournal.com/profile)[**marigoldg**](http://marigoldg.livejournal.com/)'s challenges. I think it fizzled largely due to the first person voice; I usually use first person when I have a clear reason in my head to do so, and I found that in the end I didn't.

I must admit that my first glance at Faramir, Steward of Gondor, was not a kindly one. Pippin can tell with glee the bad patient I make at the best of times, and the best of times did not include lying alone in a vast bed, in a city as pale as my shieldsister's face. I sound ungrateful, and I'm truly not; the folk of the Houses of Healing, and indeed all Minas Tirith, held me in high regard and took very good care of me. But what was that regard and care when Frodo and Sam were vanished into desperate peril, and Theoden King dead almost before I'd come to love him, and all my other friends, with them my Pippin, gone away into the very Shadow which loomed over us all?

All my friends save one, and she lay pale as her sheets and spoke little, and her thoughts were full of a darkness I couldn't part to reach her.

I would have covered my tears with a jest, but there was no one to joke with. So I held them at bay with crossness, all the angrier with myself for knowing what I was doing, and my first sight of Faramir didn't improve my mood.

He looked so very much like Boromir.

Tom Bombadil had given me my sword, but Boromir had taught me how to use it. As hobbits went, I was a prince, but Boromir had taught me the true meaning of the word. I owed him my life, and here was his image but not, looking at me from very different eyes.

It hurt, and I scowled.

Faramir smiled, holding out his hands as he crouched to my height, and the open gesture made me want to kick him for being so generous. I didn't, of course; I bowed. But I still couldn't smile.

 

notes:  
[Merry and Faramir chatting about Pippin and Eowyn. Merry is wary of Faramir's interest in Eowyn until Faramir unwittingly eases his worry by telling him about his friendship with Pippin.]

Faramir introduces himself, invites Merry to sit, says you are the halfling still here? Merry thinks, "left behind, you mean?" feeling so very lonely, thinking "will I be the only one who goes home? What will I tell my aunt and my uncle? What will I tell Sam's Gaffer?"

Faramir says, "they tell me you rode from Rohan with the Lady Eowyn, that you helped her in a great deed" and Merry goes "yeah yeah", then realizes Faramir is asking after Eowyn, and regards him skeptically.

[My head snapped up at that question['tell me of the lady Eowyn']. I felt my eyes narrow, but had no mind to put an innocent look on my face. How could he ask? Didn't he know how brittle she was, with the man who raised her as a father dead (etc). But then I recalled that this was Boromir's brother, who had lost his mother far too early, who had just lost *his* father, and according to Pippin, Denethor had not made nearly as good an end as Theoden did. Besides, this was Faramir, whom my Pippin thought the world of. Perhaps there was something to him.)

Faramir catches the skepticism, and brings up Pippin, and says, "he spoke of you." Faramir talks about Pippin, wholly respectfully (at one point fishing for an adjective, Merry mentally filling in predictions, and then being surprised when Faramir comes up with 'valiant') warms his heart (Pip had told Merry that he was quite fond of Faramir and how spiffy Faramir was)

Conversation lags. Merry thinks about Eowyn's tales of Wormtongue, is afraid that Faramir wants Eowyn for her beauty, wants to cage her; Reread how Theseus felt about Amazons; have Faramir somehow get across that her strength as well as her beauty attracts him, and/or say something like "besides, I wanted to talk to those who did what I could not, and struyck down the witch-king" [Faramir says something like "it would be good to have someone to asks Merry if he sparred with hertalks about how she taught him a new sword-form. <\--won't work, but consider idea] (Remember, her shield arm is the broken one)

So Merry warms to him, and they talk about Eowyn, Theoden, Pippin; Faramir tells Merry about Frodo and Sam. In evening when Merry yawns, etc, before they go in Merry admonishes Faramir that he is making friends with two people Merry loves, and if he hurts either Merry will make him pay. With no hint of laughing at this, Faramir agrees. Merry thinks that maybe this will be good for Eowyn, and his heavy spirits rise with something like hope.

Next scene: the scene where the Eagles bear them the happy news, and Merry runs out to find Eowyn and Faramir and sees them together, and is glad.

Epilogue, with Faramir lifting Merry into bed and thanking him, etc.

Note how surprisingly well Merry and Eowyn know each other for how short of a time they've known each other.

Note on Merry: he hates being cold.

book notes:

Merry watching Pippin go away p 864

Eowyn saying "my hand is ungentle" and ranting to Merry about Faramir, maybe. p 939 (maybe she rants to Merry afterwards)

Merry talking to Faramir, p 940 Thinking of Grima and the others she told him of who wanted to cage her.

Merry on the fifth day after, when the "the wind died and the light failed and the Sun was bleared" stepping out to find Eowyn, and seeing them together, and thinking of Pippin and of Frodo and feeling better. p 941

Leaving her behind when he goes to Osgiliath/Cair Andros, and feeling he leaves her in good hands.

>From RabidSamFan's drabble discussion here:  
<http://www.livejournal.com/users/rabidsamfan/55660.html>

Discussion: Ooooh. I do think Merry loved her, in a very straightforward, "lay down my life for you" kind of way. When Faramir came to speak with Merry about Eowyn, Merry might very well have been careful with what he said until he was sure this Man had good intentions.

_I did not save her from the Witch King to watch her heart be broken once again._

2004-08-04 11:35 (link) Yeah, it is a plotbunny isn't it, that conversation between the two of them? I wonder if anyone's written that gapfiller?

Thanks! (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)

rubynye 2004-08-04 13:52 (link) I was going to (I put references to it in my two Faramir/Merry/Pippin stories), but I think you hit this way out of the ballpark. Woosh. (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)

On second thought... rubynye 2004-08-04 14:00 (link) Comment Posted Successfully I thought I saw my plotbunny sailing off over the Moon (how could anything I was going to write compare with this?) until on rereading I noticed something: " just the first to think he might command."

That's actually not Faramir's way, not that Merry knows that. And Pippin can't tell him...well, not directly. Hmmm....

I think my plotbunny has returned to me, muchly improved. :)

At end, Eowyn and Faramir comfort Merry when he gets news of how badly Pippin is hurt, and Faramir gives Merry a kiss on the brow and tells him to give Pip his love.

Eowyn and Faramir's tale, to reread: p 937

Merry with simbelmyne: <http://www.livejournal.com/users/mucun/47567.html?mode=reply>


	2. A Full Fair Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my "the-way-I-see-the-Shire" stories. I really do want to finish this, but it has gone through a *lot* of changes, and likely will go through more.

**Posted for this year's WIP Amnesty Weekend**

Title: A Full Fair Day  
Fandom: Lord of the Rings  
Rating: As it is: PG-13 As it was intended to be: R.  
Pairing: Merry/OFC Merry/OMC, Merry/Frodo ; Pippin (Merry/Pippin preslash, maybe)  
Notes: This is one of my "the-way-I-see-the-Shire" stories. I really do want to finish this, but it has gone through a *lot* of changes, and likely will go through more.  


A Fair Full Day  
(Merry celebrates his twenty-first birthday)

Merry's twenty-first birthday was his best yet. It was not his most lavishly celebrated; his first birthday had been truly opulent, though of course he didn't recall it, and his twentieth was a party befitting the heir of the Master of Buckland and rivaling, nearly, Bilbo Baggins' 111th. It wasn't even the smoothest day he ever had, not least during the moment when the entire day teetered on the edge of disaster. However, in the end it was a wholly satisfying day, full of celebration of his life and promise for the future, besting all the others so far.

First Breakfast

It was already a good day before Merry even opened his eyes. Birdsong echoed through the window, merely sparrows twittering, but lovely all the same. A sharp little nose poked his shoulder, warm damp breath spilled through his nightshirt and across his skin; a wiry arm curved across his chest, and ten toes prodded his thigh. Merry smiled, and sighed, and shifted a bit, just far enough away from Pippin to ease the poking, and turned on his side to drape an arm over his little cousin. Pippin had a bed of his own, of course, in a room of his own just up the hall where the Tooks' Brandy Hall rooms were, but like as not Vinca or Pim were sleeping in that bed. Pippin never did. Ever since he could walk, whenever he came to Brandy Hall he stayed with Merry.

Pippin was growing bigger, and bonier, and he responded to Merry's shift with a sleepy twitch of his hand on Merry's chest and a more insistent nestling of his sharp-nosed face to Merry's shoulder. Merry winced and laughed softly as he disentangled himself from Pippin, who frowned in his sleep and curled round their pillow. The window trimmed the morning sunlight into a circle of pinkish gold, low on the wall by the door; Merry stretched his arms over his head, and grinned to himself. It was his birthday.

Better yet, it was _his_ day. Last year, from dawn to bedtime, Merry's day had been filled with and constrained by the demands of the huge celebration, his new responsibilities, his Grandda's formal public acknowledgement of him as his Da's heir. Hobbits had come from all over the Shire, and Merry had had to pay every single one of them proper respect. Even with Frodo beside him, it had been a bit much.

But today....this birthday would be quiet, or at least as quiet as any Brandy Hall celebration went; Merry's plans for the day unfurled in his mind, and his smile broadened as he thought of certain names and faces. One was Pippin, and Merry turned back to his cousin to tousle his hair and gently shake him. "Morning, Pippin!"

Pippin gave a puppy-growl and batted at Merry's hand in his hair, and Merry laughed; then Pippin blinked, and sat up suddenly, rubbing his great green eyes and smiling. "It is morning!" he said, as if mornings had newly been invented. "And it's your birthday! Happy birthday, Merry!" Pippin leaned forward to embrace Merry and kiss his cheek, and Merry pressed his face into Pippin's curls and squeezed him back.

Then Pippin detached himself and curled up round the pillow again, his back to Merry. "Have a lovely day!" he mumbled cheerily. "I'll join you 'round elevenses."

Merry laughed, grabbed Pippin round his waist and hauled him from the bed. "Morning, Pippin," he repeated over Pippin's squawk of dismay, and stilled kicking feet with "would you rather Pearl or your Mam to come fetch you?"

"I'm still sleepy," Pippin protested, going limp. Merry groaned and hauled him up like a sack of apples---Pippin was already heavier than the last time he'd done this---and set off, giggling cousin over his shoulder, to find baths and first breakfast.

 

Second breakfast.

Garnet squirmed, pinned between Merry and the pantry wall; a streak of worry cut through the pushing pleasure of the kisses, so he shifted his weight back a bit, but she wound both fists in his hair and dragged him forward again. With a little shrug and much eagerness, he let himself lean on her, the better to feel her softnesses pressed all up and down him, and kept on kissing her.

Merry's own hands were around Garnet's back, feeling linen and lace crinkling, warm soft flesh under the clothes. She wasn't even a year older than he, but was quite filled out already, soft bosom pressed to his chest, soft skirts brushing his shins, soft mouth moving over his, soft moans spilling up from her throat. Soft everywhere, and girl-sweet, but spiced with hands tangled in his hair and teeth denting his lips, hips bucking against his as she writhed between him and the wall. Merry sank into her softness, immersing himself in her as much as he could with their clothes between them and feet beneath them. Kissing was all Garnet would agree to, and it was sense, they were both very young yet, but the way she enwrapped him while merely kissing made Merry want to plunge as deeply into her as ever he could.

Garnet shifted in Merry's embrace, skirt-draped thighs pressing to his, head tilting back, and Merry slid his hands down her back to fill them with her soft rear and gather her in. She squeaked at that, and nipped his lip, and Merry felt a brighter flare of want and pressed closer. It wasn't till her hands tugged again at his hair, back rather than forward, till he caught the higher pitch in her moans, that he realized she was stiffening in his arms, that she wanted him off; he pulled his head up, and his eyes fluttered open to the sight of her mouth hardening from kiss-moist slackness to something a little annoyed and a touch fearful. "Merry, get your hands off my arse!"

"Oh!" Merry immediately did so, wrenching his hands free, unwinding his arms and stepping back. However, Garnet just looked even more dismayed, and after a moment's confusion Merry folded his arms, pushing down the surge, feeling annoyance mingling with desire. _Make up your mind!_ he thought; she reached for him, but he tucked his hands away. "I didn't mean go away!" she added. "I just, well, you gave me a fright. I thought you were about to take a liberty."

Merry snorted, but decided to be magnanimous, and unfolded his arms to take her hands in his. "Would I do so?"

Garnet smirked a little, tilting her head. "Well, these hands did," she replied, squeezing them, and Merry had to give her that point. "Um, well, I beg your pardon," he said, flushing.

"I grant it," Garnet tipped her head back as she stepped forward, their joined hands sinking away from between their faces, and Merry grinned as he tilted his face to hers.

"Merry!" Pippin's shrill yell sent them flying apart. "Merry! Someone's coming!"

"And they'll hurry if they hear you screeching!" Merry hissed through the door, trying to calm his pounding heart; when he turned back to Garnet she had her hand pressed to her mouth, smothering laughter. "He's likely just finished the jam tarts," Merry said, cocking an eyebrow invitingly, but she shook her head, sidling round him to the door. "I can't chance it," she said between giggles. "I'll see you later, Merry."

Well, as a farewell, that just wouldn't do. Merry reached out to catch her wrist in his hand, watching her eyes widen as he pulled it up to his mouth, watching her lids droop and her mouth ease into a smile as he laid a long wet kiss to the inside, where the skin was sweet-salty and her pulse beat beneath his lips. He finished with a smacking noise, and she giggled almost tipsily as he released her. "I do hope so, Garnet,"

Garnet smudged her wrist dry on her apron and straightened her hair-ribbon, her dark eyes never leaving Merry's. "Happy birthday, Master Brandybuck," she said, smile tilting into a grin, as she opened the door.

Garnet stepped out, and Pippin stepped in, all over crumbs. Merry took a steadying breath and licked his lips, tasting Garnet on them; then he glanced over to find Pippin staring at him. "What?" he asked, running fingers through his curls to tamp them down, before starting on the long labour of tidying Pippin up.

"What were you _doing_ in here?" Pippin asked, eyes wide, cheeks smudged with jam. Merry pulled out a handkerchief and scrubbed Pippin's face, "Hold still. I was kissing her."

"Just kissing? She's all flushed and fluffed and rumpled, and so are you." Pippin folded his arms. "Why would you kiss a lass, anyway?"

"You'll know why when you're a tween," Merry replied, ruffling Pippin's hair. Pippin tilted his head up to regard Merry doubtfully as a few crumbs fell out of his curls..

Elevenses.

Just because it was Merry's birthday was no reason for him to miss his lessons, of course. [this needs to be an actual scene of them bickering. Neri says Merry should have the day off. Merry looks hopeful. Uncle Mac ;aughs, quizzes them. Beri is surly. When they start yelling Merry asks to be excused and runs away.] Uncle Merimac quizzed Merry for over an hour, and the only consolation was that he drilled Beri just as hard. After all, when Merry was Master he'd need capable assistants. Beri seemed less reassured by this reasoning than perhaps he should have been; in fact, he was downright sulky, and so snide that his father turned snappish. Knowing better than to get between them, Merry escaped them both with great relief when the bell rang for elevenses.

The meal exceeded Merry's expectations, even before anything was served; sitting with his family and his uncle's, serving as pillow and audience to a vibrantly prattling Pippin, was Frodo, Merry's other favorite cousin.

"Frodo!" Merry ran full tilt across the dining hall, and Frodo held out an arm. [insert that Merry was expecting to see Frodo after his birthday, and the hug, and stuff.and then the singing.]

Elevenses: Has elevenses with family members he likes. One of them sings. (Maybe Alyssum.) Pippin holds a baby. She sings this: <http://www.thewildoats.com/allamong.html>

Luncheon: Making out with a lad in another out of the way place, maybe between the west barn and the greenhouse. Comparing lass and lad feel as he does so. Lad's name is Dinimas, nickname Nim, another Brandybuck. [ears and backs of knees and navels, all good bits to remember, and boy taste rather than girl taste] [Merry wanking Nim, watching his face, and thinking about lads and lasses.] Have lad kiss the back of his neck at one point. (has to be wanking. part of the point is the difference between how far he can go with a boy and a girl. But make it nonexplicit; Nim has head tilted back, gasping and shaking, and Merry watches, and afterwards licks off hand.) End scene with Nim chasing Merry, or vice versa, out of frame.

Tea: deals gently with a different lass, who makes a scene .(she is crushed out on/silly over him) She throws herself at him and he turns her down. She acts as if she thought his offer to dance with her at a past party was a betrothal. (he thinks of sharp words, but restrains them. Sees Frodo watching out of the corner of his eye.)

Dinner: handing out gifts. Merry gives Frodo a little gift for Sam.

Afters: staggering back from drinking, laughing and telling a joke with his arm round Frodo's shoulders. The corners of Frodo's mouth, with smiles tucked away in the dimples. Convo about cosominating with Pip, about how Merry and Frodo stopped cosominating when Frodo judged Merry too old. Frodo takes his face in one hand, tilts it, asks him if he wants to start sleeping with him again, ("if you still want me") and kisses him quite warmly. Merry is all set to go to his bed that night, but Frodo says, 'no, get some sleep. Tomorrow, settle Pippin in his bedroom and meet me in mine."

Curling up with Pippin in bed at the end. Pip sleepily kisses his cheek and goes back to sleep.

 

 

Brandy-sweet, brandy-burning Brandybuck lad (description)

 

 

Merry and Nim chatting about Pippin, when Merry turns down Nim's offer of more sex that night in order to go find Pippin, who is likely waking from his nap, and turns down going fishing the next day because he promised Pippin a picnic. Nim says Pip is the lad Merry will likely settle on. "he's little more than a faunt! He may yet grow to have a taste just for lasses." "He's a Took. They're randy creatures." "That's rich, coming from a Brandybuck." "You're a one to talk." "How else would I know?" *smooch*

song for singer to sing: <http://celtic-lyrics.com/lyrics/290> \--they leave out the saucier verses, due to the early hours. Pip notices and whispers to Merry.

Frodo gives Merry the best kiss of all, gently stroking his ears, skilled and controlling.

hot kiss: <http://www.livejournal.com/users/billthepony/34224.html>

 

before going any further, look up and reread "the spring running" (mowgli story). Try and catch some of the same feel. and read some more Teen Titans teenager stuff.

Author's notes: hobbits age at a different rate from humans, but what that rate is is theorized differently by different authors. Merry is roughly equivalent to an eighteen-year-old here, I think.

Reread your Merry/Sam stories. Also reread "an unexpected party", and note Merry's personality there. Remember tactile. Descriibe meals, favorite goods, etc.


	3. Common Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frodo and Sam break up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now look at that summary. How can I resist this challenge? [](http://rabidsamfan.livejournal.com/profile)[**rabidsamfan**](http://rabidsamfan.livejournal.com/) gave me a splendid plotbunny *wave to her* and I really want to do it justice, but I just haven't worked the story quite out yet.

Today's WIPs are....I may get them done one day, but I'm honestly uncertain.

**Posted for this year's WIP Amnesty Weekend**  
Title: Common Things  
Fandom: Lord of the Rings  
Rating: As it is: PG-13 and as it was intended to be: R to NC-17  
Pairing: Frodo/Sam  
Summary: Frodo and Sam break up.  
Notes: Now look at that summary. How can I resist this challenge? [](http://rabidsamfan.livejournal.com/profile)[**rabidsamfan**](http://rabidsamfan.livejournal.com/) gave me a splendid plotbunny *wave to her* and I really want to do it justice, but I just haven't worked the story quite out yet.  
Warning: Technically, it's a songfic, in that the song (in the notes) provided a title, inspiration, and structure. But that won't show in the finished version; no lyrics will be quoted. Assuming I ever finish this. Maybe I'll write it for Valentine's Day next year, if there's still a thriving hobbitfic fandom.

Sam usually woke up of a morning in a narrow bed in the room he had used to share with his brothers and now shared with a set of storage chests and some equipment, a room that smelled of dried herbs and straw mattress. This morning he woke in a featherbed with a warm hobbit curled against his side, in a room that smelled of cut flowers and lovemaking. For a moment he wondered if he were still dreaming, as he stretched himself a bit, feeling skin sliding warmly against skin; when he opened his eyes, a familiar thatch of dark curls lay on his shoulder, a beloved ink-stained hand lay over his heart. Definitely dreaming, Sam thought with a smile, as he kissed the top of that curly head and was rewarded with a sleepy, beautiful smile. "Mornin', Mr. Frodo," Sam murmured.

"Sam," Frodo half-sang, half-yawned. "Good morning." His hand slid across Sam's shoulder, leaving the skin tingling in its wake, as he tilted his head back further, aiming for a kiss.

Then the doorbell rang, and indeed did wake them up.

"Oh, bloody hell," growled Frodo, as Sam exploded out of bed, into his breeches before he'd even realized it. The doorbell rang again, and pounding accompanied it. "Sam?"

Sam wrestled his shirt on, turned as he fought with the buttons. "Sir, I'll get that, I'll just be a moment dressing." More banging, cheerful male shouting. Frodo sighed, eyes wide and fixed on Sam and full of questions, questions that mirrored the ones in Sam's heart, questions there was no time for. "Sam, I, oh, blast it." He shook his head. "We'll--- talk later. I promise."

Sam nodded, and ran for the door.

When he jerked it open, in tumbled Mr. Folco and Mr. Freddy and Mr. Merry, laughing and talking at once, lugging a bag of apples. "Hullo, Sam, where's your master?" Mr. Freddy asked, depositing the apples in Sam's arms.

"Doubtless still asleep," Merry replied with a grin. "Look, we were so early we woke Sam!"

"Hmmm, the servants don't sleep so late in Whitwell," Folco said, and Sam felt his ears start to burn. "I told you two we could stay abed a bit longer."

"And miss this beautiful morning?" They tromped off to the kitchen, chattering; Sam looked out at the morning, which was indeed beautiful, sunbeams splashed across a glowing sky above sun-touched trees dressed in red and green and gold and full of singing birds. However, it was only a pale shadow of the beauty of a few moments before; Sam sighed, and shut the door, and followed.

 

 

*

 

For the next week, Mr. Frodo Baggins, master of Bag End, entertained his friends with the able, unassuming assistance of his servant Samwise Gamgee. Frodo laughed and talked and visited, while Sam cooked and straightened and generally smouldered. [describe Frodo trying to give Sam glances and hidden touches, and that just making things worse.

 

Sam clearing up. Listening to picnic plans. Bringing discarded cloak to his nose to catch Frodo's scent: scene of them wound in a cloak in the woods.

Watching Frodo come in, shadow like a caress, flashback to first kiss in winter.

Cup, flashback to dinner and wine and convo about hiding their relatuonship after Frodo's majority, and then listening to "you should get married" chat. (explain here)

 

They all leave, Frodo glomps Sam, Sam basicaslly says "you've ignored me all week. I guess I'm just a warming-pan to you. But I can live with that, to be yours." Unhppiness, convo, farewell kiss.

 

This is RabidSamFan's plotbunny:

<http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubynye/38307.html>

Suppose that Shire custom (which puts elaborations and formalities on interactions like those seven signatures on a will) has a formal kind of set of rules for sexual exploration. Suppose again that "tweens" are supposed to -- even expected to -- do their experimenting with folks of their own gender, and that once you come of age you're expected to look for a wife/husband and be fruitful now -- with a good bit of experience behind you to help you not be quite so awkward in bed, and yet some fun explorations to make courting fun. Suppose it's considered very wrong to cross age lines.  
Now. If Sam turns 21 on April 6, and Frodo turns 33 on September 22nd of the same year...

The pain of having been put away, the illicit affair, etc. Work up the story.

All from Sam's POV

 

Sam clearing up. Listening to picnic plans. Bringing discarded cloak to his nose to catch Frodo's scent: scene of them wound in a cloak in the woods.

Watching Frodo come in, shadow like a caress, flashback to first kiss in winter.

Cup, flashback to dinner and wine and convo about hiding their relatuonship after Frodo's majority, and then listening to "you should get married" chat. (explain here)

Frodo asks Sam to stay the night, and sneaks into his bed twice. Sam thinks of telling him no, and doesn't/can't. The next day after the second time is the blowup.

They all leave, Frodo glomps Sam, Sam basicaslly says "you've ignored me all week. I guess I'm just a warming-pan to you. But I can live with that, to be yours." Unhppiness, convo, farewell kiss.

 

 

Inspired by this song: <http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/Commonthings.html>

lyrics of song:

Common Things

Lyrics and melody © 2000 by Catherine Faber.  
Arrangement © 2000 Arlene "Callie" Hills and Bob Esty

Where you have to turn the corner, between the entry and the hall,  
There the flame that crowns your candle, throws your shadow on the wall...  
When I close my eyes I picture, and my heart begins to race  
If I were standing in the corner, would your shadow brush my face?

 

All these common things surround you, and my heart has no defense.  
Am I mad that I might envy things with neither thought nor sense?  
Even though they never know it, yet your passing lends them grace;  
I would trade and count it fortune, to be standing in their place.

You come striding down the staircase, where the morning sunlight woke  
The gleam of maple, polished under the hem of your descending cloak,  
And in dreams so sweet and heady my straining will begins to fray  
I feel your cloak brush all around me; I hear your footsteps fade away.

The winter mantle on your shoulder, fashioned of the finest wool  
Free of shame or shyness twines you, soft and yielding, warm and full.  
Did I dare to so embrace you, wind would not dislodge my hold;  
It's your warmth would make me tremble, not the bitter winter cold.

A simple cup of sturdy stoneware, by your plate at dinner stands,  
Waiting through the winter evening, warmed and warming in your hands  
And like cats that know no boundaries, dreams approach the mouth that sips  
Till the leap of longing wakes me, lifted lightly to your lips.

 

 

 

 

 

Set out to Write Angst.

Folco and Fatty and Merry unexpectedly drop by. After several days of just enough glances to keep him from utter despair, patting objects etc (remember song), Sam gets time alone with Frodo when Frodo gets Merry to take the others out. Sam is stiff and awkward, though, because he thinks Frodo wants him for a "gentlehobbit's warming-pan". Or, rather, Sam is upset that he *should* be upset, but he isn't, he wants to be Frodo's warming pan rather than being put away. Frodo is hurt and angry, but not so hurt and angry that he can't see Sam's pain and assuage it. They have to worry about getting caught

Frodo is insecurely Master of Bag End, and doesn't want to let go of Sam but doesn't want to look tweenish and unable to handle himself before his friends (and by extension his relations). Sam, meanwhile, thinks, 'if we have to hide it, why are we doing it?"

"We have to be sneaking around, it ain't right."

seeing a beloved face behind one's closed eyelids

instead of yelling, perhaps scolding?

Frodo starts prontificating, Sam just stares at him with tears in his eyes, Frodo catches himself, apologizes for yelling, pulls Sam close again.

"You're upset. It's in the set of your lips. This tender lip..." and Frodo runs his thumb over Sam's bottom lip.

Frodo backs Sam up while yelling, and then kissing, till his knees hit the desk and he realizes Sam is sitting up on the desk.

Convo on whether Sam was too young for all this (Frodo is much older than he is, after all) Frodo's known him all his life, worries about having undue influence. "I didn't want to hurt you" "I can't think of a worse hurt than being put away" In discussion of ages note that Sam was born the year Frodo's parents died.

Discussion of if they can manage to stay together without sex....they eventually do. Epilogue showing that they have.


	4. The Lass in the Apple Tree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I so want to write this one. I have things I really want to say with it, about relationship interrelationships, about love and fidelity and monogamy(or rather lack thereof) and how female characters don't have to be evil awful things. But it never came together out of ideas and notes.

This one is very short.

**Posted for this year's WIP Amnesty Weekend**  
Title: The Lass in the Apple Tree  
Fandom: Lord of the Rings  
Rating: As it is: PG As it was intended to be: PG-13  
Pairing: Pippin/Diamond [Merry/Pippin, Merry/Estella, maybe Estella/Diamond]  
Notes: I so want to write this one. I have things I really want to say with it, about relationship interrelationships, about love and fidelity and monogamy(or rather lack thereof) and how female characters don't have to be evil awful things. But it never came together out of ideas and notes.

 

Hobbitlasses were supposed to stop climbing trees when they were grown and married. Diamond climbed one anyway. But then, sensible hobbitlasses did not marry wild adventurers, even if they had intoxicatingly mischievous green eyes, and dutiful wives did not run off from their husbands after a fight, and Diamond had just done both. Now she sat as far up an apple tree as she could, breathing in the scent of the ripening apples, trying to breathe in their calm,

[someone calls her, she startles] Diamond had expected Pippin to come after her, and was working on some choice words for when he did, but the hobbit who stood below her on the grass was Merry. [they talk. He explains some stuff to her, and tells her that Pip loves her, that she has brought the future back to him the way Estella and Rose did to their husbands. Mention Frodo; Diamond would have liked to have met him. At end Pip climbs tree quietly while they are talking and joins them.

Maybe do when she and Pip are engaged, not wed.

Mention why the North-Tooks live in Long Cleeve; a young Took lad moved up there to be with the girl he'd chosen. Streak of stubbornness.

(Or maybe have ESTELLA climb up there.

The girl in the apple tree.  
(find two challenges for this to fit)  
Challenge #16  
Alternatively: light, rock, sun, crown; wistful

and #20  
Words: haze, quiet, challenge, support  
Mood: Empowered

link to Hyel's pic.

<http://www.sentai.org/~hyel/lotr/fanart/deltreefruit.html>


	5. Party Games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several stories I've read began with a party and ended with sex. I decided to go the other way around.

**Posted for my Unofficial WIP Amnesty Week**  
Title: Party Games  
Fandom: LOTR  
Rating: As it is: hard R As it was intended to be: NC-17  
Pairing/s: Alphabet Soup! Depending on version: F/S, F/M/P, F/OC, S/OC. Pervinca/Sam. Mention of S/R. Maybe F/M, F/P, S/M, S/P.  
Notes: The summary would have been "72 hours at a Yule party at Great Smials." And my gimmick was "Several stories I've read began with a party and ended with sex. I decided to go the other way around." Neither was enough to sustain a story, especially when I couldn't decide precisely what the plot would be and therefore what the pairings would be, nor when I worked on it over such a stretch of time that my intended characterizations significantly changed. (I wouldn't write F/S this way now, were I ever going to write that pairing again.)

Besides, my Shire extrapolations would probably just have gotten me in trouble anyway. *rueful smile*

_Sam, yes, Sam, just like that..._ Samwise Gamgee could almost hear the words inside his head, even if all he could actually hear with his ears were muffled moans, since he was currently stopping the eager mouth of his master and lover Frodo Baggins with his own. Great Smials was a huge place, but the guest quarters were full of small, thin-walled bedchambers; even though Sam could hear at least three couples about the same delightful business he and Frodo were currently conducting, he had a mind (well, what small part of his mind remained to him, as Frodo rolled his hips like that and dragged his fingers up Sam's back like that) that those couples would not hear him and Frodo. So he gripped Frodo's hip more tightly and pressed his mouth more urgently to Frodo's and struggled against the tide of his own blood to be gentle enough to give Frodo no cause to scream, until Frodo, lithe as an eel, wriggled beneath Sam and wrenched his mouth free, arching his back and clutching Sam's shoulders and wailing from the bottom of his lungs as he peaked; some tiny part of Sam's mind fluttered indignantly for a bare moment, but by far most of Sam was dragged over the edge after Frodo into thrusting spinning spark-filled pleasure.

"Mmmh." After a long, comfortable, entangled moment Sam opened his eyes, only to fall into Frodo's blue gaze, as Frodo laid a rather sticky hand on his cheek and smiled at him. "I must be heavy," Sam whispered, but Frodo merely wound his legs even more tightly around Sam's waist as he shook his head and kissed Sam again, their hearts beating against each other, to each other. It almost seemed as if Sam couldn't quite tell where he ended and Frodo began, as if all of Great Smials, all the world had vanished and there was nothing but the two of them, warm and damp and breathless and happy in each other's arms.

Then a giggle from one of the adjoining rooms reminded Sam to blush; when Frodo noticed he most unhelpfully laughed, and Sam's face burned all the more.

 

*

 

Sam had finally managed to stop blushing sometime in the midst of their bath, Frodo leaning against him with his dark wet head tipped back to rest on Sam's shoulder. Their guest room had a glass window, tightly closed but unshuttered to let in the light; Sam looked up at it, watching a tree's bare branches wave in the wind, before Frodo shifted and sighed, calling Sam's attention and drawing a smile to his face. This trip was a belated birthday present from Frodo, and for all the oddness of a hobbit such as he even having a holiday, he was having a very good time so far.

Sam's smile widened, and he hid it in Frodo's damp curls as he remembered. He'd said to Frodo, "but sir, a holiday, what will I _do_?" and Frodo had airily replied, "Oh, I don't know; look at the gardens, talk to folk, drink some ale, eat, smoke, talk to old friends, make new ones, tumble me, maybe even meet someone else you'd like to tumble." Sam's eyes and mouth went round, especially at the last two suggestions, and Frodo had winked at him and planted a kiss on his parted lips.

And so, here Sam was now at Great Smials, and his poor head fairly spinning with it. [work notes:  
And so, left to his own devices, Sam set out to fill his day. Great Smials was a mighty warren it was, full of

[Sam first tries to make himself useful, but the servants mostly treat him as a novelty and won't let him help and insist on feeding him and flirting with him. He finds a sitting room lined with books, but doesn't feel worthy. Fetching his cloak he goes out to putter about in the winter sleeping gardens, and Frodo finds and says the dancing's about to start.

Because Sam doesn't do as much work as he's used to, he isn't hungry, so he doesn't have much food in him when he starts drinking, leading to becoming unfamiliarly tipsy..  
] [this scene: Sam at Great Smials, head awhirl, missing Rosie. marveling at place. Describe Great Smials, the bustling halls, the bright patterned Tooks wearing clothes in the day Sam would have expected for a party, the food and the smoking. Have Frodo break into that thought by asking how Sam will spend his day and Sam says, 'what, surely with you?" and Frodo says "oh, no, I brought you here to enjoy yourself." Sam isn't quite sure what to do with so much leisure, and can't hardly tell the servants for their cheer and dressiness, and they won't give him work. He pops into the garden and briefly meets a redheaded lass. imagine hard and detailed how a sleeping garden looks. Then to dance, and describe food.

 

F/S, F/M/P, F/OC, S/OC maybe . Mention of S/R. maybe F/M, F/P, S/M, S/P. Explain the 'alphabet soup' at the start of the story.

Party Games

'48 or 72 hours at a winter party at Great Smials. [not specifically Yule]

Author's note: Several stories I've read began with a party and ended with sex. I decided to go the other way around.

[old version of Main plot. Don' put in Merry or Pippin complications.:  
F has taken S with him for a party at Great Smials. S in early 30's; twisting of Gaffer's arm to get his permission. We see the party through Sam's POV. Include bits what a handsome hobbit Sam is while not realizing it. F has a grand time, [maybe: though there's a bit of angst over Reginard Took (borrow the idea from Baylor that those two were lovers: see [http://www.west-of-the-moon.net/servlet/ReadGenStory?storyID=75)]](http://www.west-of-the-moon.net/servlet/ReadGenStory?storyID=75\)%5D) and S has a good time, fends off passes from both genders, discusses gardening, has a nice chat with Pippin (and  
fends off a pass there, too), discusses old times with Merry and shares a kiss before replying to 'we played the tween together once' with 'we ain't tweens anymore' (or maybe make Sam give in the second time). and at one point misses his honest Rosie amidst all the fluttering Took lasses. (Rosie has warm brown hair)]

note smoking.

Remember Great Smials greenhouse, Sam is very taken with it.  
<http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubynye/1288.html#cutid1>

lovely, G-rated, Brandy Hall story to read and think about"  
<http://thia.luminousbeings.net/Blossoming.htm>

Story about the lure of forbiddenness and how it feels to be drunk:  
[http://www.io.com/~cortese/stories/show.cgi?fandom=hornblower&filename=blaze.txt](http://www.io.com/~cortese/stories/show.cgi?fandom=hornblower&filename=blaze.txt)

F/S relationship:  
<http://karadin.com/babyitscoldoutside.html>

A Party story (het) : <http://www.livejournal.com/community/hobbit_smut/50038.html>

Find urls for shire landscapes, shire map, tookborough, etx

<http://www.shirepost.com/ShireMapLarge.html>   
<http://www.shirepost.com/ShireMap.html>   
<http://www.shirepost.com/ShireMapGreatSmialsTuckboro.html>   
<http://www.tuckborough.net/dwellings.html#Great%20Smials>

Notes for scenes:

For Party Games: Tooks are tall, cheerful, and brightly dressed. When Sam tells someone his name he ends up with a bunch of laughing servant girls all round him (read BillThePony's Kissing Fame story for an idea of the fluster) Also put in apple tart with a little cutout apple on it; Sam is trying to decide what kind of apple it is when he looks at the dancing and is wowed.

A cute girl, her flaming red hair between Marigold's carrot and Daisy's auburn, attaches herself to Sam, saying 'you aren't handfasted, are you?" He stutters "no, but" thinking "my heart is given to two hobbits" but not managing to say it. She hauls him off to meet her Mam, who sees that he's being polite, not besotted, and *they* discuss herblore. Later he gently puts the girl off.

Party games aplenty. Write a list. Blind man's bluff, kissing guessing games, etc.  
this party game: <http://www.livejournal.com/community/the_hobbitpile/705.html> (be sure NOT to have F/M/P play it. Maybe Sam gets roped into it.)

Sam finds the retired gardener whose son and daughter-in-law took his position, and stands him a few pints, and talks to him about gardening.

Sam talks to someone about trade (spces up coast, etc), and Lotho's ramped up competitive trade.

Frodo, meanwhile, shares an angsty kiss with Reg, and much happier ones with Merry and Pippin.

F&S discuss telling Rosie. "So, she's the one you'd like to marry, Sam?" "Yes, she's the one. She's been my friend all my life, she was the first lass I ever tumbled with and she still likes me. And she can read, because you taught her, and she understands my dreaming foolishness." F very much approves, and thinks she'd understand, but he just isn't ready to start letting on to Hobbiton yet. F talks about missing her, since she's gotten too old to come visit him all the time, having to behave properly as befits a lass. Sam has seen less of her, too, since she could catch and all, and bitterroot is hard to come by and must be used sparingly lest one develop a tolerance and it lose its effectiveness.

Sam *does* get seduced by a girl, a quiet-seeming one who looks rather like Pippin and turns out to be Pervinca. (Description: Must be kin to Pippin, with curly chestnut hair and a rosebud mouth, but her eyes are sharp green rather than sparkling green.) She gets him tipsy, and at one point a maid says something to her and she shushs her before she can reveal her identity. Note that she acts a little furtive, and drags him away from the dance pretty soon. "No one will mark where I go, tonight." They indulge in what might be called heavy petting, since she didn't take bitterroot and/or can't induce him that far. She only tells him that after she's got him fairely worked up. Maybe work cunnilingus in there. He enjoys himself, but has mixed feelings about it, it seems to him these things should be more serious. When Sam sees her with Pippin and finds out who she is he nearly dies, and F rolls about laughing. Frodo is relieved to hear that Sam didn't actually tup her, since he doesn't want Sam to be stuck with Pippin for a brother in law. *smirk* Later they talk as they dance, and she says, "if I'd told you who I was you'd never have touched me. I hate being bound by being the Thain's daughter. If Pippin can tumble his way through the Shire, why can't I? We have the same hot blood." and Sam says, "but you might catch a child" and she says "did we do anything such that I could catch?" and Sam says, "well no" and she says, "did I do anything that would get you in trouble with your lass?" and Sam says, "lass?" and she says, "I hope whatever lass taught you so well had the sense to keep ahold of you!"

[maybe put Sam dissuading Pippin by saying 'it's never been tween games to me'. Flip a coin to see if Pip succeeds anyway.]

Remember dancing.

 

Put this girl into the story, puppeting in a corner:  
<http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/n/a/natashad/show_big.gif.html>

 

"to tip the velvet"--tonguing a woman. write into Party Games"; With Sam's face over her tummy, Vinca says, "I'm sure you know how to tip the velvet", which makes Sam turn red; she laughs and says, "I'm cold, please tuck that red face against me to warm me" and winds a leg round his neck,  
which drives off his last good sense. Describe how she smells.

Have her wistfully saying how she wished Gandalf would notice her and take her on an adventure.

Drop Reggi Took bit. How Sam finds out who Vinca is is at the next evening's dancing, when Frodo points out Pippin's 3 sisters: slightly prim Pearl; Nellie, who looks as if butter would not melt in her mouth, but is wild; and Pervinca, who is just wild (off-shoulder dress, cf red hobbit lass sketch) Sam recognizes her with a shock, going white then red, and Frodo laughs.

After they dance and talk, and Vinca says, "I suppose you won't join me again tonight" Sam sees her with the red-haired lass; she gives him a slow wink that makes his face burn and his breeches tighten. Under the influence of that, he gets himself roped into a kissing game. He ends up with Merry that time

At one point F takes S to the library and they read to each other till F dozes and S strokes his hair and just sits.

Afternoon nap, which makes Sam feel VERY strange.

All servants not on duty are partying, don't forget. (See the kissing-game  
story:<http://www.west-of-the-moon.net/servlet/ReadSlashStory?storyID=89>)

more pages from herbal to get recipes from:  
88, 99, 106 (tookland mint pastry), 112, 116 (a pot of purslane, mention in The Rosebush), 121, 130, 136 (rosemary flowers in may), 141 (do scene in Party Games where Vinca feeds Sam candied flowers and makes him guess. sage flowers, rosemary flowers (bright blue), mint flowers (purple), rose petals, violent petals, aniseeds.

Vinca's description: she has curly chestnut hair and wide but knowing grey eyes., smallish high breasts that are a good palmful each, little waist, slender hips, wicked mouth. She hauls Sam out of the dance to bed with her, and sneaks him out in the small hours of the morning. (Reread my two Pervinca stories) Or finds them a hidden corner with her knowledge of the place.

Sam and Vinca had met because Frodo had shoved Sam into the dancing with "go have fun, and I don't expect to see you in our room tonight"

 

Party Games:  
Drunk Sam, smiling at the room in general approval. Frodo dancing with lasses. At end, Sam saying he had rather a bit too much fun.

<http://samart.samwisegamgee.net/art.htm>   
<http://samart.samwisegamgee.net/artgraphic.htm>

 

A note for orgasm: all the colors of spring behind his eyelids/ "sees colors without names behind his eyelids."

Pervinca Notes

 

<http://www.livejournal.com/community/hobbit_art/106109.html>

Pervinca mentions something to Sam about wishing Gandalf would take her on an adventure. from Library of Arda: After the foundation of the Shire, he would visit periodically and was responsible for '...quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures' (The Hobbit, Chapter 1, An Unexpected Party).

Remember, Pervinca lives in a cage of her gender, in a way. Unlike Pippin, she *is* told no sometimes.

 

Sam *does* get seduced by a girl, a quiet-seeming one who looks rather like Pippin and turns out to be Pervinca (whichever is the youngest of Pippin's sisters). (Description: Must be kin to Pippin, with curly chestnut hair and a rosebud mouth, but her eyes are sharp green rather than sparkling green.) She gets him tipsy, and at one point a maid says something to her and she shushs her before she can reveal her identity. Note that she acts a little furtive, and drags him away from the dance pretty soon. "No one will mark where I go, tonight." They indulge in what might be called heavy petting, by semimutual consent (that's what ends up happening). She only tells him that after she's got him fairely worked up (or he refuses to do more).

Sam first sees her at a dance, swirling skirts and all.  
for Party Games: finally write it, goddamit. Describe a dance, the lasses and swirling skirts and so on.

When Pervinca leans in to kiss Sam, he thinks of/recalls in the back of his mind how once Frodo threw a sheet of paper onto the fire and it lay there for a moment before catching fire and curling inward to vanish; his mind is doing the same thing as Pervinca kisses him. She tastes like wine and spices and lass and what else he doesn't know, but it goes straight to his head.

He enjoys himself, but has mixed feelings about it, it seems to him these things should be more serious. When Sam sees her with Pippin and finds out who she is he nearly dies, and F rolls about laughing. Frodo is relieved to hear that Sam didn't actually tup her, since he doesn't want Sam to be stuck with Pippin for a brother in law. *smirk* Later they talk as they dance, and she says, "if I'd told you who I was you'd never have touched me. I hate being bound by being the Thain's daughter. If Pippin can tumble his way through the Shire, why can't I? We have the same hot blood." and Sam says, "but you might catch a child" and she says "did we do anything such that I could catch?" and Sam says, "well no" and she says, "did I do anything that would get you in trouble with your lass?" and Sam says, "lass?" and she says, "I hope whatever lass taught you so well had the sense to keep ahold of you!"

"to tip the velvet"--tonguing a woman. write into Party Games"; With Sam's face over her tummy, Vinca says, "I'm sure you know how to tip the velvet", which makes Sam turn red; she laughs and says, "I'm cold, please tuck that red face against me to warm me" and winds a leg round his neck,  
which drives off his last good sense. Describe how she smells.

After they dance and talk, and Vinca says, "I suppose you won't join me again tonight" Sam sees her with the red-haired lass; she gives him a slow wink that makes his face burn and his breeches tighten, and he runs off/Frodo takes pity on him and takes him back to their room.

Some coinversational notes: Frodo says to Sam "must I dare you to enjoy yourself? Very well, then." In afterconvo, haev Frodo apologize and have Sam say it was fun but "too lightly done." In final scene in the snow looking back at Brandy Hall: Sam suddenly says "O, what shall I tell Rosie?" and Frodo says "that there's no lass like her in all the Shire."

 

Find urls for shire landscapes, shire map, tookborough, etx

<http://www.shirepost.com/ShireMapLarge.html>   
<http://www.shirepost.com/ShireMap.html>   
<http://www.shirepost.com/ShireMapGreatSmialsTuckboro.html>   
<http://www.tuckborough.net/dwellings.html#Great%20Smials>

 

Streamlining and Setup:  
Sam at Great Smials, head awhirl, missing Rosie. marveling at place  
Meeting people  
Tipsy Sam watching dance, meets/is seduced by lass  
bed, sleeping alone.  
Next morn, woken up by hungover Frodo.  
a quieter day, library nap.  
dancing at night, running into Vinca, talk  
runs into Merry, who retrieves Frodo for him.  
convo/reassurance from/sex with Frodo  
leaving next morning


	6. Telling the Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story fell afoul of a kerfuffle I got myself into with a BNF and her minion over whether people who write Frodo/Merry are [tinhats](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DataLounge#The_Tinhats.2FPrancing_Ponies); after that, every time I looked at it I thought of that fight, and I just couldn't keep working on it. Which is ridiculous, but that's how creativity works sometimes, or rather doesn't.

**Posted for my Unofficial WIP Amnesty Week**  
Title: Telling the Dream  
Fandom: LOTR  
Rating: As it is: R at least As it was intended to be: NC-17  
Pairing/s: Frodo/Merry  
Notes: This story fell afoul of a kerfuffle I got myself into with a BNF and her minion over whether people who write Frodo/Merry are [tinhats](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DataLounge#The_Tinhats.2FPrancing_Ponies); after that, every time I looked at it I thought of that fight, and I just couldn't keep working on it. Which is ridiculous, but that's how creativity works sometimes, or rather doesn't.  
On a completely other subject, it also has two beginnings, one tucked into the notes below the text.

 

Telling the Dream

 

_Hazy summer sunlight and the Brandywine's babble...."Merry." Frodo's voice, warm in his ear, Frodo's touch, seemingly all over his skin.... "Mmm, yes." Merry moans, sinking into warmth..._

"Merry!" Frodo is laughing, now, and shaking him? And Merry is back in his clothes, he's slumped over the arm of the overstuffed sofa where he must have fallen asleep, in the midst of a truly boring late winter afternoon with the rain droning on against the windows. Merry blinks awake to find Frodo leaning over him, a hand on his shoulder, the other lifting the abandoned book off Merry's lap. [edit from here, and start writing again]

Off the tent Merry's pitched, what with that dream, and his blood already up. "Well, now," Frodo drawls, looking down as he sets the book aside, "I came to wake you for tea." One cool forefinger traces a hot line over Merry's straining fly; the shudder ripples outward through Merry, making his belly quiver and his breath stutter, his hand clench and his toes tingle and his mouth fall open on a gasp, and even as embarrassment clears the sleep-fog from Merry's mind it opens room for the haze-heat of the dream, still lingering behind his eyes, to overtake his thought.

Frodo continues, low and amused, "it seems, however, that tea might wait, if you would like it to." Frodo glances up through his lashes, smile small and tilted and naughty, eyes deeper than the Brandywine at evening, and Merry forgets how to speak and can barely nod. Frodo's grin is a little wider, a little wilder, as he settles in beside Merry, tucking them together, and cups his cheek and kisses him. For now, the kiss is warm and soft, but the press and the intent and the heat are all there just beneath the surface, just about to burn through, and Merry pushes into the kiss, pushes into Frodo's hand settled over his hardness, already shuddering towards flame.

Frodo kisses him, and smiles over his mouth, and pulls back. "Who were you dreaming of?" he asks, trailing two maddening fingertips up and down straining cloth. "A pretty lass? A handsome lad?"

Well, caught as he is, Merry might as well make a laugh of his confession. He winds his arm around Frodo's waist as he replies, "A very handsome lad indeed."

"Hmm, do I know him?" Frodo toys with Merry's buttons, circling them each in turn with his fingertip.

"Yes, that you do."

[conversation while they neck: "yes you do," "who is he," "a very eligible bachelor with dark hair and bright eyes and a lovely smial all his own." "What's his family?" "An ancient and respected line, with ties to the tooks and especially the brandybucks." "Ah, and does he have any golden-haired kissing-cousins?" "Yes, he does, a lad of surpassing attractiveness and sense." "And for a moment I thought you were talking about me." Merry laughs and bites him. Frodo giggles and takes him in hand, and Merry makes to get up, and Frodo says "where are you going?" Merry says "we can't here" and Frodo says "yes we can. Tell me what you dreamt." And while Frodo strokes and bites him Merry does.]

 

 

Start with Merry waking up. Frodo takes the book off his lasp and runs fingers over the bulge.

Merry has settled on the sofa, not an armchair.

[former intro It was one of those lagging late winter afternoons, the sky grey and spitting beyond the windows, the raw chill seeming to congeal Merry's thoughts. It was not a day that any hobbit would go out into if he didn't have to; Sam had only come up briefly, to check the fires and the woodpile, before going home to spend the day. Whlie Frodo sat in his study balancing ledgers of such a profound dullness that Merry could not imagine how he could stand it, Merry picked the book of tales with the brightest illustrations and sat in the small parlor to read them. Settled into a soft armchair, the fire warm inside and the rain pattering outside, Merry made it through half of the first tale before falling soundly asleep.

He was so deeply asleep when Frodo came to wake him that his cousin's familiar voice and touch mingled with his dream, and he moaned, "Frodo". A laugh brought him fully awake, as he realized with a start he was fully dressed and slumped uncomfortably, and his cheeks began to pink. [Frodo asks what he was dreaming about, fingers over but not touching the Bulge, and Merry gasps "you".

For Aratlithiel's birthday<\----won't be done in time. Instead, write for hobbit smut. Make language less highfalutin and more porny.

Frodo/Merry:

Frodo wanking Merry while making Merry tell him about a fantasy.

Making him tell a dream that Merry had about him. Frodo comes to wake Merry for afternoon tea (which he made, Sam being home that day), but says it'll keep and hauls him away to bed where he makes him tell the dreamwhile wanking him. Merry dreamt of late spring and brandywine swimming and Frodo and Pippin was off somewhere....he dreamt of tupping Frodo.

This is the F/M analogue to "Cures All Ills"

Notes: Merry dreamt protectively/toppily/. Ddin't move scene to bedroom: Merry says, "we can't in the parlor" and Frodo says, "Bag End is all my own to do with as I please. I think we might."


	7. Near Kin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be for a [](http://hobbit-smut.livejournal.com/profile)[**hobbit_smut**](http://hobbit-smut.livejournal.com/) rare pairing challenge, but I ended up writing "A Likely Lad" instead. I've always wanted to write this threesome, but by the time I was working on this I was feeling not so enthusiastic about my place in hobbit fandom anyway (and also see what took down "Telling the Dream"; that also affected this story.) But life is like that.

**Posted for my Unofficial WIP Amnesty Week**  
Title: Near Kin  
Fandom: LOTR  
Rating: As it is: PG-15 As it was intended to be: NC-17  
Pairing/s: Frodo/Sam/Merry  
Notes: This was meant to be for a [](http://hobbit-smut.livejournal.com/profile)[**hobbit_smut**](http://hobbit-smut.livejournal.com/) rare pairing challenge, but I ended up writing "A Likely Lad" instead. I've always wanted to write this threesome, but by the time I was working on this I was feeling not so enthusiastic about my place in hobbit fandom anyway (and also see what took down "Telling the Dream"; that also affected this story.) But life is like that.

Mr. Merry always put Sam in mind of thunder. When he ran about shouting with young Mr. Pippin, the racket they made was loud as thunderclaps. When he laid hands on Sam and kissed him the shock and tingle was surely what a lightening-hit must be like. When he drew down his fair thick brows, his grey eyes darkened like thunderheads heavy with rain. And when he quarreled, as he had this forenoon with Mr. Frodo, it was like a summer storm, suddenly shaking and whelming all the world, just as quickly clearing to sunshine again.

So it had been this day; Mr. Merry and Mr. Frodo had crept about each other, soft and gentle to be careful of healing feelings, a smile on every word. Sam'd crept round them both, striving to be unseen and making special favorites of theirs for supper, because he knew the cause of their quarrel, and that he bore much of the blame of it. Now that Mr. Bilbo was gone away into the Wild, Mr. Merry was worried after Mr. Frodo, and sought to convince him to lease Bag End and return to Buckland where he'd not be alone.

Just the thought of Mr. Frodo going away always froze Sam with dread, and the thought that came after always thawed him with warm guilty pleasure. Mr. Frodo would not go back to Buckland, because, he said, he wasn't alone: he had friends in Hobbiton and Bywater, and Great Smials a day's slow stroll away, and all of Mr. Bilbo's tenants and holdings, and Sam.

Mr. Frodo had Sam. The thought made Sam's heart bubble over with pride, even as he reminded himself in his Gaffer's sternest voice to keep to his place and not get above himself. If his Gaffer saw him now, dillydallying over the supper dishes, he'd clout the silly smile right off his face, and rightly so. Shaking himself, Sam turned his mind back to the washing-up, and the teacup in his hand.

Soon enough the dishes were clean and drying. Sam tipped the water out and wiped out the dishpan, then chanced one more glance into the small parlor. Mr. Merry and Mr. Frodo sat with brows touching, sharing a pipe and some quiet words, and how was it that the sight of them together always made Sam smile and ache at once? He drew back, thinking to fetch his cloak and go, but Mr. Frodo glanced up, firelight golden in his eyes. "Sam, would you come here?"

Mr. Merry looked up as well, and smiled with brows up and open, and Sam felt his cheeks heat. "Certainly, sir," he replied, coming forward, but Frodo shook his head once, a small smile on his lips.

Sam knew that shake, that smile; they meant that Mr. Frodo wished for his company as a friend, and made it wonderfully harder to know his proper place. Wnen Sam drew near, skirting the low table, Mr. Merry's brows came down and his smile tilted wickedly as he reached out to grasp Sam's wrist; he pulled Sam down beside him, snug and warm so that Sam went boneless as wax and helplessly leaned close. He was but flesh and blood, after all.

"Would you like a spot of brandy?" Mr. Merry offered; beyond him, Mr. Frodo nodded slightly, lips pursed round the pipestem, so Sam smiled and said, "Thank you kindly, Mr. Merry, I'd like that."

There was but one glass, printed on the rim by two mouths; the brandy seared Sam's mouth with sweet fire and charred the edges of his thoughts to a haze. When Mr. Merry laughed and kissed him, hot and sweet with brandy and pipeweed, it seemed so natural that Sam kissed him back for a long moment before his sense could struggle up, before Sam could gasp and push his head away from Merry's tempting mouth and back into the chair cushions. "Mr. Merry---" he said, his gaze turning towards Frodo.

Sam found him smiling, gently, almost indulgently. "It's all right, Sam," Mr. Frodo said, leaning forward a little to lay a hand on each of their knees. "It's fine."

"But you and Mr. Merry, sir, I thought---" It was so hard to think at all, with Mr. Merry still leaning on Sam so close his breath blew warm and cool across Sam's damp mouth and burning cheeks; Sam didn't dare look at him, so he closed his eyes. "I thought tonight you'd be wanting to, well, mend your friendship, begging your pardon."

"Sam." Mr. Frodo gently stroked his knee. "We do, we both do. With you." Sam's first thought was hazy protest, for how could it be proper, but this wasn't about what was proper, it never was with Brandybucks, and Mr. Merry still held him in strong warm arms, and the brandy was blazing through him like fire in harvest stubble.

So he nodded, and tilted his chin up, and as Mr. Merry laughed again over his mouth and kissed him open-mouthed, he could feel Mr. Frodo's smile.

 

 

 

Mr. Frodo often put Sam in mind of water, in all its aspects. [brief divarification on Frodo being blue and swift and whatnot, and writhing in his arms like a stream in spate. And clouding his mind like something else that flows, ale or hard liquor. Till then that night it was as if Sam hadn't thought but just lived and felt]

 

 

For Near Kin --- the strory is about Merry and Sam going from competing to partners in loving Frodo, as catalyzed by Frodo.

Merry leads Sam to Frodo, who tells him of their plan, looking/sounding/seeming sure "everywhere but his eyes"

Choreography"

[describe in less-detailed remembrances bit: Merry asks Sam's help in undressing, and takes the opportunity to undress Sam. Frodo watches, then assists.] Sam comes to himself holding Frodo in his arms while Merry blows him (note Merry staring up at Sam for a moment ["his gaze unfathomable, dark and strange"], then blinking and reaching for his hand. Reread ingev's story with Liam and Charlie and the Loanshark here, for communication-via-the-person-in-the-middle. . Despite having had a turn Sam hardens again, kicking himself for it [Frodo notices and wraps his hand round and wriggles round to kiss him], and this is when Frodo and Merry team up on Sam; they tuck Sam between them and concentrate four hands on him (fingering and wank); Sam comes when he sees them kiss over him, a pleasure too strong for pleasure, almost. Late at night, Sam tries to get out of bed and Merry pulls him back in, and they have a whispered convo.

"Near Kin" needs the whole sex scene, and it needs actual conflict, even if only little, and Sam nearly leaving. Merry sitting back at one point, proud and poutty.

Include in that convo: phrase "Well -- that's rare!" and discussion of love and hate being near kin. Start it with Sam thinking of himself as earthy, scolding himself for falling asleep, for having no more brains than a clod of earth.

for Near Kin, continue storm language to describe Merry. The kiss over Sam: They smiled at each other, Mr. Merry with his brows up, asking, Mr. Frodo calm and assuring. <\--watching that kiss, Sam comes so hard he sees stars.

<http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubynye/34144.html>

now that you have time, make it a longer story. Merry and Sam have some serious communication to do. (Sakm feeling disconnected from both, connecting to Frodo more easily, connecting to Merry.)

Remember, what's in Sam's head! At any given moment. Sam ought to think random semi-related stuff, about dinners and gardening and events.

Be sparing of the heat metaphors in sex. You rather overuse them.

remember intensity and confusion, and dealing with confusion by staring at one bit of someone and not other bits.

a story to give you a mood idea: <http://www.livejournal.com/users/thete1/437511.html?style=mine#cutid1>

and a story to inspire thoughts on fuckedupness, sex, communication, and sex as communication: <http://www.livejournal.com/users/thete1/453020.html?style=mine>

Merry recalled Frodo saying when Merry was small how alone he'd been when he was orphaned, and had remembered and worried about that when Bilbo left.

Merry says that hobbits shouldn't live alone, asks Sam to keep watch over Frodo.

"I love him, Sam." "I know you do, Mr. Merry." "And you love him, too." "If I might be allowed, Mr. Merry."

Three intertwined discussions. Frodo/Sam ---who they are to each other; Merry/Sam---both simultaneously admiring and jealous of each other; Merry/Frodo ---no, F, is not returning to Buckland.

Frodo smiles and says it can be easy, because in the end it's all about love.

Mention Pippin, as in "Merry will be at Great Smials as much as his parents will allow, anyway".

Note Merry looking at Sam grumpily, and Sam looking wide-eyed back, and then Merry blinking and smiling.

Wind a bit of Ring Worry into it. Merry and Sam noticing Bilbo's old ring which he left to Frodo, and chatting about it.

Title: Near Kin. Because love and hate are near kin, and because F and M are in heart if not in blood.

<http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubynye/14066.html>

<http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubynye/81560.html>

<http://www.livejournal.com/community/pornish_pixies/179559.html?#cutid1>

themes of trust: <http://www.livejournal.com/community/batfic/54451.html>

You'll simply have to read ElanorGardner's Kindred Spirits first.

Write a Frodo/Sam/Merry. You know you want to.

Possible other things to work in:

Discuss in that story why Frodo doesn't get married. Not just a taste for lads or anything like that, but also a sense that he has things to do that getting married would interfere with. that would make getting married unfair. He has to search for his heir elsewhere.

A note or three: Sam has worked out some of the class issues w/Merry, before having to tackle them with Frodo. Perceptive Merry, knowing both of them and having slept with both of them, figuring it out. "Love changes everything"

Merry saying, "I rather envy you, you know. You have him all to yourself out here" and Sam gently setting Merry straight, that Frodo is quite busy with all of Hobbiton, etc. and Sam envying Merry being Frodo's cousin and social equal.

<http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubynye/24043.html> <\---Sam and Merry have done some of the working-out of the class issues; Frodo and Sam do some more.

sequel to this:

<http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubynye/74894.html>

The argument did not so much end, as break off abruptly when Merry charged out of Frodo's study, footfalls heavy and loud, through the kitchen and into the garden. Sam cautiously peered around the edge of the study door to see Frodo slumped forwards, head in hands; but before Sam had taken two steps towards him Frodo said without looking up, voice weary and cool, "Sam, if you would be so good as to check on Merry, I would very much appreciate it." Aching and obedient, Sam followed the harsh sound of weeping to find Merry lying facedown between the beans and the tomatoes. The cousins' distress wringing his heart and stopping up his words, Sam laid a hand on Merry's shoulder; Merry shook harder, but sniffled and sat up, and scrubbed his face with a green-blotched sleeve. "Ah, Sam," he said, with a bitter little smile, "sometimes, I almost hate you." Then Merry whipped round, so fast Sam flinched with anticipation of a blow, but Merry wrapped tight arms round Sam's ribs and pressed his face to Sam's shoulder. Merry's hair still smelled faintly of smoke, Sam noted incongruously, shaking his head at his own daftness and awkwardly returning the squeeze.

Afterwards, when he wakes he reproaches himself for dozing, and tries to go, but Merry stops him and tells him to take care of Frodo for him. (Merry's motivation for wanting Frodo to return is that 'Frodo needs his family around him', but Frodo wants to be master of Bag End, on his own.) When neither is watching, the seemingly asleep Frodo smiles.

 

 

 

 

from character meme:

When talking about Pippin/Sam for magicalmolly I talked about Pippin's wild side being good for Sam. I think that applies even more with Merry/Sam, because when I think about Sam's development I can infer a tweener Sam who's struggling to integrate 'proper' levels of seriousness and play, familiarity and respect, and I think a tweener Merry would be good at shaking him up and not letting him end up too staid. Merry seems a little more responsible than Pippin, so I think Sam's responsibility would reinforce Merry's more than developing it. Which brings me to one of the big links between them, as I see them. Merry and Sam are in similar chronological relationships to Frodo, and I see both of them as having that protective-younger feeling towards him (a slightly different feeling than being older and protective) and bonding over their common love of him, rather than competing because of it. After all, breaking Frodo's confidence, even for his own good, would be a huge deal for Sam; I can't see him being convinced to do so for less than a friend. So, all that plus tweener hormones, is my Merry/Sam. ;)


	8. Middle Summer <i>or</i> Summer Strathspey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of all these WIPs this is the one with the best chance of ever being finished, because I love the concept and I've always wanted to write an OT4 story. And also because, if I ever do finish this story, it'll be for [](http://danachan.livejournal.com/profile)[**danachan**](http://danachan.livejournal.com/), an incentive all of itself.

**Posted for my Unofficial WIP Amnesty Week**  
Title: Middle Summer _or_ Summer Strathspey  
Fandom: LOTR  
Rating: As it is: PG-13 As it was intended to be: NC-17  
Pairing/s: The OT4 (Merry/Estella/Pippin/Diamond)  
Notes: Of all these WIPs this is the one with the best chance of ever being finished, because I love the concept and I've always wanted to write an OT4 story. And also because, if I ever do finish this story, it'll be for [](http://danachan.livejournal.com/profile)[**danachan**](http://danachan.livejournal.com/), an incentive all of itself.

[Think about heat, wet, moisture, languidness. ]

Middle Summer

"I know what the matter is with you," Pippin said, not five minutes after he'd arrived at Brandy Hall. When Merry looked at him sidelong, Pippin grinned cheekily, water running in rivulets from his hair and dripping from his cuffs, infuriating and kissable.

"Nothing is the matter with me, Pip," Merry quickened his step, but of course Pippin bounded along easily, and shook his wet hair all over the walls and the candles and Merry. "Augh, Pippin!"

Pippin laughed. "Yes, indeed, there is. You usually like water, Merry of the Brandywine." Estella heard this, and came laughing up the hallway to meet them, bearing a wide striped towel.

"Not all over my good clothes and dousing the lights! Estella, please take this terrible Took off my hands before I throttle him."

Estella threw the towel over Pippin's head, but gazed at her husband with keen bright eyes. "I think he has a point, Merry," she said, laughing again when Merry rolled his eyes.

"Is he pulling a face?" Pippin asked, drying his hair, and Estella giggled.

"Indeed he is, Pippin, one fit to stick that way." Merry growled and folded his arms, which only made them both laugh at him more, his dreadful wife and his worse cousin.

"Such merriment!" said Diamond, coming up the same passageway as Estella had. "What's --- Pippin!"

"Diamond!" Pippin threw the towel at Merry, who barely avoided being hit in the face; when he'd wrestled it down he looked up to see Pippin holding Diamond's hands, his face pink and his smile wide. Merry glanced at Estella, who was watching the tweens together; when she glanced over at him he grinned at her, and she grinned back.

Then she clapped her hands, disturbingly reminiscent of Merry's mother. "Pippin, you're drenched, you need to go to your guest room. There's a great deal of decoration left to do, and I need to make sure the cooks have made enough sweets for tonight."

Diamond looked at Estella sidelong, and it was Merry's turn to snicker. "I haven't seen Pippin in five weeks and more, Stel. The cooks and servants have been throwing parties for Mistress Esmeralda since before any of us were born. "

"Yes, but they haven't been throwing them for _me_." Estella imperiously took Pippin's arm and Diamond's hand, tucking herself between them. "Besides, I give you the task of dressing Pippin in dry clothes. That should let you see a fair bit of him."

Diamond squeaked and Pippin laughed, and they both kissed Estella on her cheeks at once, as Merry folded his arms, the damp towel draped over one. "Even Pippin can dress himself, Stel."

"You'll have your turn later," Estella replied, sweeping off with Pippin and Diamond. "And the dance will be all the better for the rain, so cease your fret, Meriadoc."

Well, there wasn't much Merry could say to that. His parents had delegated the giving of this year's Lithe celebrations to him, as a mark of responsibility in honor of his recent marriage, and Merry and Stel had put together plans for a lovely set of several parties in one, for children and grown hobbits and tweens, to be held before the doors of Brandy Hall and in the groves a little ways up the river. When Diamond had arrived she'd added her own ideas as well as her grace and cheer.

Then it began to rain two days ago, heavily to lightly and back to heavy again, with no signs of stopping; this evening would be Lithe, and though no one expected a party to match that of two years before, still Merry would have liked for the first Lithe he was responsible for, the first Lithe of his married life, to be a bit less.... soggy.

Even so, when he didn't think of his and Stel's plans for ribboned trees, music and bonfires, Merry could smile at the current preparations, the banquet hall cleared of tables and hung with lamps and greenery, the sitting rooms for three tunnels around all tidied and provided with handy signs if they were in use. The schoolrooms were being run by Beri and his friends, set up for games that would easily keep busy twice as many children as Brandy Hall boasted, and all in all it looked to be as cheerful a Lithe as ever held, even if indoors and snug more like Yule.

So what if Merry's best memories of Lithe were of dancing under the moon, of laughing words and sighs and moans in the grass beneath star-crowned trees? He was married, now, gladly so, and would have his place at the head table giving the toasts while his parents' eyes shone. Estella would be there, laughing beside him, and Pippin and Diamond across from him, their fingers tangled beneath the table. And they'd lead out the dancing, beneath lamps that, if not as numerous as the stars, were surely trying their best. It would be a grand Lithe.

Merry told himself so, and shook his head, and set off after his wife.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[expand to a paragraph about the dance. It was beautiful, and everyone looked like they had fun, but it was stuffy and weird to have to be the grownup; Merry felt nervous and thought of Frodo giving Bilbo's party after he vanished, and danced properly beneath his parents' eyes and acted good and sober. The end of it comes as a relief, and then put description of rain.] By the time the feasting and dancing had wound down to a few courting pairs in corners, crushed flowers and empty lamps, the rain had gone from steady to pounding once more; it drummed upon the windows in Merry and Estella's suite, rattling them in their frames. "Ooof, how did they pull so tight?" Estella braced herself against the back of a chair as Merry plucked at her bodice laces. "Or did I just eat too much?"

"You ate as much as you should." Merry leaned over to kiss her cheek, then went back to untangling her. "You were beautiful."

"You were very handsome." She gave him a bright, exhilarated smile. "Did I not tell you it would all go splendidly?"

And so it had, really. "You told me, Stel." Merry yanked a lace a little tighter, grinning when she gasped, before tugging it looser till she could shrug free. Beyond the doorway, a crash sounded in the sitting room, and giggles drifted over. "What are you about, Pippin?" Merry called as he watched Estella unpin her hair and shake it down, admiring all the various bits of her that jiggled, how lovely she looked out of the rigid corset, free and easy.

"Why do you think it's my fault?" Pippin called back, as Diamond giggled more.

"Because we know you," Estella called as she pulled on her dressing gown. Merry tossed his weskit on the bed and followed her.

Pippin and one chair lay on the floor, with Diamond tugging at his arm. Merry thought _I didn't think he'd had so much drink_ , but then he saw Pippin's eyes, bright with mischief, and when he got up on his feet again he was mostly steady, so Merry made much of the chair instead. "I knew it! Breaking my furniture!"

Estella raised an admonishing finger, but laughed too hard to speak, and Diamond fell over towards her, clutching her arm. Pippin promptly climbed on the sofa back, and Merry laughed and shook his head helplessly as he darted around behind to catch him. How many parties and dances had he spent with Pippin and a kissing-friend of one or both of theirs? Some things changed, but the best never did.

Soon enough, they were back in the bedroom, heaped on the bed, which had more space than the sofa; Pippin's head lay in Merry's lap, Estella's in Diamond's, and Merry's in Estella's. [set scene more; fingers through hair, etc. Try and convey Diamond's bodiced-but-unlaced manner of dress.] The candlelight was limpid and dim in the heavy, wet, warm air. "So are you still pouting at the rain?" Pippin asked.

"I was never pouting," Merry said, but Estella said over him, "I think he's cheered up."

"Good," said Diamond, and Merry snorted; he might be outmatched but he wouldn't go down quietly. "My grandmam said sometimes that the rain as well as the sun makes the flowers grow."

"That sounds like something Sam would say," Pippin observed. Merry nodded, staring over heads bright and dark. Thinking of Sam led to thoughts of Bag End, and then to Frodo, who was gone. A hand folded into his, and he squeezed it absently before realizing it wasn't either of the hands he expected; he glanced and saw it was Diamond's.

Diamond was upside down to him, looking across at Pippin. "I should go to my room," she said wistfully. "It's late."

"Do you want to go?" Pippin asked, not moving a hairsbreadth. Diamond opened her mouth, but then paused, and her brow cleared. "No, I'd rather stay," she said.

"Then stay," Estella said, slow and warm as was only right for Lithe. Both Pippin and Diamond glanced up at her, and she gave them a little nod and a smile, and Diamond took the time to smile back, at least until Pippin, moving fast, had rolled her right over, muffling her surprised gasp as he kissed her. [Merry looks at Estella and smiles, and this is Lithe, with the sex and the fun., new partners and old.]

 

 

As they watch Pip and Di kiss, Merry regards his wife. He hadn't brought up the subject yet, because they're just married and he doesn't want her to think he's not interested in her, but now it's all just as warm and easy as it should be.

Estella sets Merry and Pippin on each other, but then joins in, and then she and Pippin end up kissing. So Merry contemplates and then kisses Diamond. (Pip and Estella expressions from Hyel's picture), wacky fun ensues. Comments on what people like (Pip says what Diamond likes, Estella asks what Pippin likes, and Merry answers "everything") Merry/Diamond, Estella/Pip; Pip goes down on Stel, Merry fingers Diamond while they watch and comment on how hot Pip and Stel look, and then Estella drags Pip over and goes down on Diamond while Merry jerks Pip off or blows him. Estella says "have you ever seen a lad tup another lad? It's like when they do it to us, and different." The girls decide the boys should fuck, which Pippin is all for and Merry blushes at. and they do (don't forget towel), and then everyone cuddles and the canon pairs kiss a fair bit. Merry goes to sleep with Estella curled in his arms and Pippin tucked against his back and Diamond reaching across to put her hand on his side.

When Pippin comes Merry licks off his hand and Estella licks it/kisses him, comments that Pippin tastes slightly different. Merry replies that Diamond tastes different than she does, they both teasingly say "who tastes better" and Merry closes his eyes and fake-pretends to be asleep.

Think warmth and languor and stuff.

Think of honey, warmth, rain pounding, etc. Kisses on the backs of necks and lots of sweating due to the heavy moist air.

Reread OT4 and Merry-voice stories, and hobbitpiles, and just write

 

 

Rename Middle Summer Summer Strathspey

Note that a strathspey is a kind of dance

<http://www.strathspey.org/what_is_scd>

<http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos506.htm>  
[http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=rubynye&keyword=OT4&filter=all](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=rubynye&keyword=OT4&filter=all)  
<http://www.livejournal.com/users/hyelandia/63882.html> cutid1  
<http://www.livejournal.com/users/the_danamark/22821.html> post link to her  
here: <http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubynye/119224.html?replyto=1352120>  
<http://www.sentai.org/~hyel/lotr/slashfem.htm>

A splash, from start to finish, of a OT4 lithe story. Merry misses Lithe dancing, newly married, and Estella arranges a lithe celebration for the four of them. (Estella wrote and invited Pippin and Diamond) <http://rubynye.livejournal.com/77632.html>

Ending pose, as they all fall asleep, should be something like <http://hyel.thedanamark.net/lotr/fanart/mped.htm>

appearance notes: My Diamond.... ....has long auburn wavy hair and brown eyes. My Estella... ....has dark brown hair with red highlights, serpent-curled, and hazel eyes. And is plump


	9. none.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was intended for an "ordinary day" challenge at the late lamented [](http://ringprov.livejournal.com/profile)[**ringprov**](http://ringprov.livejournal.com/), but I wrote "The Chief's Day" instead. It's based on [this picture](http://www.livejournal.com/users/mucun/26112.html), and would probably make a good entry for [](http://writing-rei-cm.livejournal.com/profile)[**writing_rei_cm**](http://writing-rei-cm.livejournal.com/), but, well, for various reasons I don't think I'll be finishing this or joining that community. (Besides, this would need a lot of work. The adjectives are sprawling all over the text and need to be pruned.)

**Posted for my Unofficial WIP Amnesty Week**  
Title: none.  
Fandom: LOTR  
Rating: As it is: G As it was intended to be: G, PG at most.  
Pairing/s: none.  
Notes: This was intended for an "ordinary day" challenge at the late lamented [](http://ringprov.livejournal.com/profile)[**ringprov**](http://ringprov.livejournal.com/) , but I wrote "The Chief's Day" instead. It's based on [this picture](http://www.livejournal.com/users/mucun/26112.html), and would probably make a good entry for [](http://writing-rei-cm.livejournal.com/profile)[**writing_rei_cm**](http://writing-rei-cm.livejournal.com/), but, well, for various reasons I don't think I'll be finishing this or joining that community. (Besides, this would need a lot of work. The adjectives are sprawling all over the text and need to be pruned.)

Frodo woke when the child in his arms rolled over to snuggle more firmly against him. For a sleepy moment he thought, "what is Merry doing here?", but his arm lay round a lad who was too large and plump and solid to be Merry. Frodo opened one eye and saw ruffled fair hair glowing in a stray beam of afternoon sunlight. Sam, Samwise Gamgee, Hamfast Gamgee's youngest. Frodo remembered now, reading to the lad, enjoying the old tales anew through his round-eyed delight; still, the round brown eyes eventually fell shut, and Frodo, not wanting to wake little Sam, and still a bit hungover from a late night at the Ivy Bush, laid the book aside and snuggled with the lad until his own eyes fell shut.

Remembering, Frodo smiled and gently stroked the tousled hair; Sam, sleeping soundly, merely pressed his face more tightly to Frodo's side, and Frodo smiled more widely and closed his eyes again, enjoying the warmth of his young companion. Everything was so simple and beautiful to Sam; Merry was the sort of child who asked a thousand questions, and Frodo loved his little cousin for his quick and inquisitive mind, but he also loved the way Sam looked at the world around him with infectious wonder. [insert cute firefly story or something] Sam might well be remarkable when he was grown, if he didn't grow out of that wonder in favor of the duller forms of hobbit-sense.

"Samwise? Samwise Gamgee, where have you got to?" Especially if his father didn't drive that wonder from him, Frodo reflected as the voice of Bilbo's gardener fell on his ears.


	10. A Kiss in Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I intended this as an autumnal counterpoint to "[A Kiss in Springtime](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/110577.html)", to be posted on All Souls' Day, but I think by now its time is past. Ah, well.

Since I might as well.  
 **Posted for Ruby's Unofficial WIP Amnesty Week #2**  
Title: A Kiss in Memory  
Fandom: LOTR hobbitfic  
Rating: As it is: PG-13 (including notes). As it would have been: R .  
Pairing: Estella/Rosemary, Merry/Estella, Boromir/Merry, Boromir/Pippin, Estella/Merry/Pippin. My usual slash, het, and cheerful nonmonogamy.  
Notes: I intended this as an autumnal counterpoint to "[A Kiss in Springtime](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/110577.html)", to be posted on All Souls' Day, but I think by now its time is past. Ah, well.

"Stel." Estella hears Rosemary's teasing voice. "Stellie, with her wits turned to jelly." Estella turned, knowing it a dream, seeing nothing beyond Rosemary laughing, feeling nothing but Rosemary soft and warm in her arms, holding her tight round her waist.

Estella knew she dreamt, [though Rosemary smells real, feels real. She kisses her even as her mouth touches nothing but air, even as she wakes.]

 

Estella dreams of Rosemary.  
Merry cuddles her and tells her about Boromir.  
Boromir in memory tells Merry about missing those who are absent  
Pippin dreams of Boromir  
Pippin wakes to cuddle Merry and Estella cuddles him too.

 

As I said to [](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/profile)[**danae_b**](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/) :  
[](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rubynye**](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/) : "A Kiss in Memory". Five double drabbles about kisses and five dead hobbits.  
[](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/profile)[ **danae_b**](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/) : Okay, loving it already.  
[](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rubynye**](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/) : But which dead hobbits?  
[](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/profile)[ **danae_b**](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/) : (I can tell you about mine, afterwards, if you'd like.)  
[](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/profile)[ **danae_b**](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/) : You don't know which five?  
[](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rubynye**](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/) : No. nor whom they're paired with, except that I need to write Estella/Rosemary in there, and Merry/someone in there, and Merry/Estella  
[](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/profile)[ **danae_b**](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/) : Estella/Rosemary, you definitely have to write that.  
[](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/profile)[ **danae_b**](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/) : I mean.  
[](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/profile)[ **danae_b**](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/) : Yes. You just do.  
[](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rubynye**](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/) : Merry/Boromir. there needs to be Merry/Boromir.  
[](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/profile)[ **danae_b**](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/) : Oh. YES.  
[](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/profile)[ **danae_b**](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/) : I am fully behind this.  
[](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/profile)[ **danae_b**](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/) : 110%, and all that.  
[](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rubynye**](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/) : I want to do that traveling kiss thing I did in A Kiss in Springtime.  
[](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rubynye**](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/) : Hmmm.  
[](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/profile)[ **danae_b**](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/) : Which you did wonderfully.  
[](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rubynye**](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/) : Estella/Rosemary. dream. Merry/Estella, cuddles and conversation. Boromir/Merry, assuaging fears. Boromir/Pippin, a dream. Merry/Pippin cuddles and conversation.  
[](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rubynye**](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/) : that works.  
[](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rubynye**](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/) : Now do I have time to write it?  
[](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/profile)[ **danae_b**](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/) : Ow, I think my brain just exploded.  
[](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/profile)[ **danae_b**](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/) : I HOPE you have time for it.  
[](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/profile)[ **danae_b**](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/) : Because I want to read it.  
[](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rubynye**](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/) : *notes down*  
[](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rubynye**](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/) : I shall try.

 

So. A Kiss In Memory  
"Stel." Estella hears Rosemary's teasing voice. "Stellie, with her wits turned to jelly." Rosemary catches up to Estella in her dream and kisses her, and describe lavishly the feel of Rosemary's femininity.

Estella wakes to Merry, who kisses and pats her and tells her about Boromir. In Boromir's first segment (Boromir/Merry) Boromir describes Faramir telling him "and when we are apart, sometimes we may dream of each other" and says his brother is a poet. Talking of love/friends/home. Note a particular scar of Boromir's.

[In Pippin's dream of Boromir it's all sensation for the first 100 words. Boromir is having sex with him, and the sheer overwhelming surge of that. Then they are cuddling after, but Boromir is pale and blue as when the orcs shot him, and looking at Pip with eyes of sad warmth. ] no, don't make it porn. But do make Boromir pale and dead.

Pip wakes to Merry, and then Estella rolls over, and as they both kiss him they remind him that Diamond is coming to visit soon.

Say I wrote this for [](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/profile)[**danae_b**](http://danae-b.livejournal.com/). I always write hobbits for her.

Background stories to read:  
<http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubynye/26950.html>  
<http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubynye/15359.html>  
<http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubynye/26326.html>  
<http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubynye/14633.html>

for Boromir:  
<http://www.ontheqt.org/>


	11. Of Halls and Windows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to write a stuffy Pearl but not a wicked one. She lodges Stel there but the door lock breaking is an accident. And Diamond gets lodged there by a housekeeper, not Pearl. Maybe have Diamond thinking about liking Pippin's family, and reminding herself that getting rid of servants would be a naughty thing. Mistress so-and-so lodged her there.

**Posted for Ruby's Unofficial WIP Amnesty Week #2**  
Title: Of Halls and Windows  
Fandom: LOTR  
Rating: As it is: PG-at-most. As it would have been: PG.  
Pairing: Diamond/Estella/Merry/Pippin  
Notes: I felt bad to blame things all on Pearl, so I changed that, but then I felt bad blaming it on Random Housekeeper OC either; having a villain more malevolent than random chance felt wrong. Also, this would have been a Comedy of Manners, and I can't write those. So.

 

Diamond's glad she likes Pippin's family, that Pervinca's engagingly wild and Nell quietly full of astonishing stories, that Pearl may hold herself properly but there's a wicked gleam deep in her eye; Eglantine's warm and full of sense and Pal's hearty and carries himself far less grandly than her Da does. She's glad she's fond of and fits with them all, because some of the servants could wholly daunt her from living here.

_No, Di_ , she tells herself, once again, _you shan't, and you can't, come here and start dismissing servants willy nilly._ No matter how sure she is she'll live here one day, even if right now only Pippin and Estella and Merry know so too, no matter how she currently sits marooned and wakeful in the depths of Great Smials. Her guestroom's a grand snug place with a wide bed and two lovely carved chairs, but it's also deep underground without the slightest slit of window, just curved walls like the bounds of soap bubbles, whitewashed and painted pale soothing ivory. Diamond sits up by the light of one thick candle in a wrought-iron holder, all the weight of Great Smials over her head, trying to decide if she should venture forth from her room, if she knows the halls and burrows well enough to find Estella or Pippin or Merry.

She rather doubts it. Years ago when she'd visited Great Smials in her earlier tweens, with her sisters and her brother and her Da, she'd been more concerned with the fun to be had, not least with one Master Pippin, than with remembering the layout. If she took the candle and went roaming she has really no idea where she'll find herself, wandering the sleeping smial. And what would Paladin and Eglantine think of that, the lass their son's sweet on found wandering like a hobbit gone mad? Diamond doesn't want them to think ill of her, not in the least.

So she will not even give Mistress Bunce-Took the sharp edge of her tongue for showing her to a guest-room so far from anywhere. Diamond ought to have waited for Pearl and Estella to finish their conversation rather than going to bed, since she's surely not sleepy now. Diamond hoped that Merry and Pippin at least managed to stay together for the night; no housekeeper or maid could show them to rooms the others couldn't find, could they? Why might lads do what lasses mightn't?

Diamond shakes her head, and is sighing when a rap at her door makes her jump. Taking the candle, she cracks the door; it must be safe, it's Great Smials where the Tooks held off even the Ruffians for a year, but her heart's still pounding hard within her ribs as she peers out.

Not Estella, not Pippin. Merry, in nightshirt and grey cloak, smiling engagingly.

Diamond gapes, and nearly shuts the door by reflex before she remembers her earlier disdain for respectability. So she opens it, and Merry smiles wider yet, looking well-named. Diamond loves Pippin, she loves Estella, but tall Merry with candlelight glinting off his grey eyes and bright hair really is rather a sight in the darkness, and she can see a little of what they each see when they turn their eyes on him. "Hullo, Diamond," he whispers. "It took me a deal of searching to find you."

"I'm glad you did." Diamond waves him into her room. "It's lonely down here, without even the sky to see. Where in all Great Smials am I, even?"

"Lodging-rooms for visiting lasses and parentless ones." Merry rolls his eyes expressively. "I never should have let Pearl whisk you and Stel off, but I was talking with Uncle Pal on how he kept his stores stocked last year, and Pippin and Vinca and Nell were trading tales, and when I looked up you were both gone."

"Well you found me, at the least." Diamond takes his hand as boldly as if she ought, and his wide, long fingers wrap round hers. "And Pearl didn't strand me here, the housekeep did. Where's Stel, then?"

"That, I don't know." Merry's brows draw down at that, and he does look daunting. "I thought I'd find her on this hall too, but I've listened at every door, and yours is the only one I heard breath behind."

"Oh!" Diamond could, well, she doesn't know what she could do. "Well, you know Great Smials far better than I. Where do you think our Estella's been stashed?"

"I've a few ideas," Still holding Diamond's hand, Merry turned back towards the door. "Come with me and find out?"

"Come with you? Wandering the halls?" And they call Tooks wild! Diamond blinks, stunned, at his cheery expression. "If I'm caught---!" Creeping along with Estella's betrothed, well, Stel and Pippin would understand, but not another hobbit in the Shire would. Diamond would never hear the end of it to the end of her days.

"We'll just have to go quietly, then," Merry says, opening the door, and Diamond shakes her head, laughing under her breath, and goes.

*********************

Estella seethes, seriously contemplating a round of undignified screaming and banging. When she'd asked that Diamond be conducted to the same room, the maid had merely meekly curtseyed, and that likely should've been her first clue. She lay in bed, reading a book of recipes from the library, waiting for Diamond to arrive, as Merry was doubtless busy catching up with his uncle's family. She waited and waited and the candle burned down; she trimmed the wick and got up, trying to call up her memories of Great Smials' tunnels as she thought to go see where Diamond and Merry had got to.

When she turned the knob, she heard the doorlatch break, and it stuck in such a way as to lock. Now the handle jiggles beneath her hand, turning with stutters, but the door refuses to move.

Estella could just box someone's ears, if she knew whose. Everyone jokes of keeping betrotheds from each other before the wedding, to prevent six-month's-wonder babies if nothing else, but this is really ever too much. Estella strikes the door with her fist as hard as she can without hurting herself.

[Estella is thinking of climbing out the window, maybe lowered by drapes, when Pippin knocks on the window, smiling cheerfully, saying "I hope I'm not interrupting". At the news that she's alone, he climbs through the window. He leads her to Diamond's room and they find no one. Pippin figures Merry and Diamond are looking for them, and they head back to Pippin's room and find Merry and Diamond waiting for them. Diamond describes heart-pounding creep through dark halls; Pip and Merry airily say, "there's darker places". Lasses kiss them.

Scene change: Merry POV, waking everyone up to go back to their rooms. Pippin says, "shuffle!" So he goes to Estella's room with its wedged door, and Merry goes to Diamond's room on the empty girls' wing. Stel and Di stay in Merry's guestroom. Giggle and go back to sleep, expecting morning.

Last scene/epilogue: Pippin in morning, grinning at Pearl and telling her she's in trouble with her bossy ways. Pearl telling him to act respectable, dammit.

 

\------

 

Merry/Pippin/Estella/Diamond

Staying at Brandy Hall or Great Smials, and the four of them being lodged apart because M&E aren't married and P&D aren't handfasted. (Maybe Eglantine isn't home yet so Pearl is in charge of the guests.) A combination of hall-running and window-climbing gets them all together.

Note: I want to write a stuffy Pearl but not a wicked one. She lodges Stel there but the door lock breaking is an accident. And Diamond gets lodged there by a housekeeper, not Pearl. Maybe have Diamond thinking about liking Pippin's family, and reminding herself that getting rid of servants would be a naughty thing. Mistress so-and-so lodged her there.

This story is about the balancing act of appearing respectable and being themselves.

Pippin's sisters for this:  
<http://the-danamark.livejournal.com/49564.html?style=mine>


	12. "Fruitcake Fic"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mix and match any dried fruit you like for a total of 4 to 4 1/2 cups, but don't omit the ginger. Sub in 1 cup sugar for the honey, white or brown as you like.

Title: "Fruitcake Fic"  
Fandom: LOTR (hobbitfic, post-Year of Troubles)  
Rating: As it is: G. As it would have been: PG at most  
Pairing: None.  
Notes: I wish I'd written this a few years ago, when I had a fully packed Shire bustling in my head, not least to have pleased [](http://dreamflower02.livejournal.com/profile)[**dreamflower02**](http://dreamflower02.livejournal.com/), who deserves all wonderfulness. Be that as it may, it does include a fruitcake recipe that works, I promise. 

There had, perhaps, been hotter days in the past, but at this moment,  
Beryl could not recall any. She'd spent as much of this blazing May day as she might down in the cellar, organizing and labeling their bins of dried foods and jars of preserves. There was much space and not that much food, all told, but it's far better than before, and she smiled as she counted over every bit they've managed to put away, well on their way to refilling their larder.

Right now, though, she was in the sweltering kitchen, mopping her brow as she stirs barley-water and covers it to let it soak. Mam was hanging the wash, Berno off fishing somewhere, and it was a hot day but a peaceful one.

Then the front door rattled beneath a firm knock.

Beryl realized she jumped when the spoon clattered against the edge of the pot, on its way off the stove. It slipped through her fingers and rattled upon the floor and she huffed at herself, then breathed a laugh, then just breathed and waited for her fluttering heart to slow. Sometimes a knock startles her even now, six months after it stopped being a reason for her and Berno to hide, shivering in the cellar, feeling sick to leave their Mam to face the bullying Ruffians alone but not about to disobey.

But it was six months the Ruffians had been gone, and Beryl had no need to hide anymore. She wiped her wet palms on her apron, and crossed the hall to the door.

She didn't even properly see the visitor before a high, sweet lass's voice cried "Beryl!" as she was tightly squeezed, sturdy arms round her neck and a bright cloud of curls across her face. "Beryl, I'm so glad to find you home!" Knowing she knew the voice, but not yet how, Beryl brought her arms up around the lass's back as she struggled to remember. "Oh, I had to come see you!"

And then she knew the voice, and pulled back far enough to see the face, round and pink and lit by a sweet smile, unfamiliar until she imagined the cheeks pale hollows, the eyes deeper and wider but still just so bright. Beryl knew the hobbitlass so glad to see her, and gasped in shocked delight, "Hyacinth!"

 

 

 

Shire Kitchen Recipe Challenge

Hyacinth goes back to Michel Delving some time (6 months? A year?) after the Troubles and thanks the hobbit who nursed her after she was rescued from the Lockholes. (Hyacinth goes back to thank Beryl and family.)

6 months. Use this as first line:

There had, perhaps, been hotter days in the past, but at this moment,  
_____ could not recall any.

and write for July Challenge at <http://community.livejournal.com/lotr_community/7782.html>

have Hyacinth bring a fruitcake.

The first few crazy happy days after liberation.

 

Scenes:  
Hyacinth shows up. Beryl hugs her.

flashback: brother runs to house, gives news of lockholes' liberation; Beryl drags him up to Lockholes with armful of blankets.

Hyacinth has come to have tea, reveals fruitcake.

Flashback: Beryl hears they need hobbits to take the prisoners home and nurse them, sees pale thin dirty hobbits being carried out and laid on grass outside doors. Has brother pick up one young lass who has a grown lass in Took plaid sitting by her, and carries her home. (Reference to [Merimas' Wooing](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/380011.html))

Beryl and Hyacinth talk: her sister Lilac has sworn off cakemaking because it was on a smuggling errand for cake supplies that Hyacinth was caught. She hopes to convince Lilac otherwise.

Flashback: brother's romantic hopes for what Hyacinth'll say when she wakes and finds herself rescued; how she weeps on waking and says, "I must look dreadful" and pushes him away. Beryl does better wth Hyacinth. (Lass cries and says she shouldn't be there, until Beryl convinces her that everyone has been freed.) Beryl sees her mother feed Hyacinth broth and decides to tempt her with a piece of saved cake, and wins a first smile from her.

Hyacinth tells Beryl that Peridot saved her in there and Beryl's family saved her out here. She goes home, but not without promises to write. Indicate lifelong friendship.

 

Characters:  
Hyacinth  
Beryl  
Beryl's brother Berno  
their Mam

Shire kitchen info:  
<http://community.livejournal.com/shire_kitchen/44002.html>

due April 18

 

Note from Perry's story (unposted):

The next time Perry woke he was more lucid. He lay in a bed, a warm bed with covers heaped over him and a gently simmering pot nearby filling the room with herb-scented steam. He coughed, and swallowed, his mouth sleep-dry, and found he could breathe, found long golden streaks of light across the flat ceiling above him.

He was safe in bed, and it felt like waking. Not a room he recognized, its straight walls painted with curling vines near the ceiling and dripping blossoms beneath. But it was snug and warm and he was alive and safe. It seemed impossible to credit.

 

 

Maybe even sooner, or a year later. Use the Apple Wassailing as a background.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassail>

 

At Carhampton, near Minehead, the Apple Wassailing is held on the Old Twelfth Night (17 January). The villagers form a circle around the largest apple tree, hang pieces of toast soaked in cider in the branches for the robins, who represent the 'good spirits' of the tree. A shotgun is fired overhead to scare away evil spirits and the group sings, the following being the last verse:

 

Old Apple tree, old apple tree;  
We've come to wassail thee;  
To bear and to bow apples enow;  
Hats full, caps full, three bushel bags full;  
Barn floors full and a little heap under the stairs[2].

 

 

 

Hyacinth's Fruitcake.

Based on Alton Brown's "Free Range Fruitcake". My notes are in brackets.  
A general note: mix and match any dried fruit you like for a total of 4 to 4 1/2 cups, but don't omit the ginger. Sub in 1 cup sugar for the honey, white or brown as you like.

1 cup golden raisins  
1 cup currants  
1/4 cup cracked dried rosehips, picked over for seeds [optional]  
1/2 cup candied angelica, diced [optional]  
1/2 cup sun dried blueberries  
1/2 cup sun dried cherries, halved  
1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped  
Zest of one lemon, grated  
Zest of one orange, grated  
1/4 cup candied ginger, chopped  
3/4 cup brandy [maybe Hyacinth comments on having less these days]  
3/4 cup honey [Rather than sugar, still in short supply]  
5 ounces unsalted butter [1 1/4 sticks]  
1 cup unfiltered apple juice  
1/4 tsp ground cloves  
1/2 tsp allspice  
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg  
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon  
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger  
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour  
1 teaspoon salt  
1 teaspoon baking soda  
1 teaspoon baking powder  
2 eggs  
1/4 to 1/2 cup toasted walnuts or pecans, broken, if desired. [I leave these out.]  
Brandy for basting and/or spritzing

Combine fruit, candied ginger, citrus zests, and brandy in a container with a tight lid. Let sit overnight to plump, or microwave for 5 minutes.

Place fruit and liquid in a non-reactive pot with the honey, butter, apple juice and spices. Bring mixture to a boil stirring often, then reduce heat and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat and cool for at least 15 minutes. [Batter can be completed up to this point, then covered and refrigerated for up to 2 days. Bring to room temperature before completing cake.]

Heat oven to 325 degrees.

Combine dry ingredients and sift into fruit mixture. Quickly bring batter together with a large wooden spoon, then stir in eggs one at a time until completely integrated, then fold in nuts. Spoon into a 10-inch non-stick loaf pan and bake for 1 hour. [Or make fruitcake cupcakes and bake for 45 minutes, or bake in a ring pan for 50 minutes, or...] Check for doneness by inserting toothpick into the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean, it's done. If not, bake another 10 minutes, and check again.

Remove cake from oven and place on cooling rack or trivet. Baste or spritz top with brandy and allow to cool completely before turning out from pan. When cake is completely cooled, seal in a tight sealing, food safe container. Every 2 to 3 days, feel the cake and if dry, spritz with brandy. [I just douse it with brandy, wrap in waxed paper, and let sit for 2 weeks to a month, and it comes out moist, dense, and delicious.] The cake's flavor will enhance considerably over the next two weeks. If you decide to give the cake as a gift, be sure to tell the recipient that they are very lucky indeed. [This is an essential step; don't omit it.]


	13. Counsels of the North Kingdom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was intended to be the eventual sequel to "Snare" (and its longer version and the sequel to that, which are on my AO3), where Pervinca Took makes some closure for herself for her experiences during the year the Shire was occupied by Ruffians, and does a ~~boy~~ young man a good turn as well. I had kind of a thing for interspecies het that not many people shared. *waves to a couple people who did*

So, WIP Amnesties this week, fic next week, or so I'm planning.

Title: Counsels of the North Kingdom  
Fandom: LOTR (hobbits and Men)  
Rating: As it is: PG-15. As it would have been: NC-17  
Pairing: Pervinca Took/OMC (Artung, Soldier of Gondor)  
Notes: This was intended to be the eventual sequel to "Snare" (and its longer version and the sequel to that, which are on my AO3), where Pervinca Took makes some closure for herself for her experiences during the year the Shire was occupied by Ruffians, and does a ~~boy~~ young man a good turn as well. I had kind of a thing for interspecies het that not many people shared. *waves to a couple people who did*

Being not on watch and having no set duty at the moment, Artung slipped from the barracks and his fellow soldiers' company, intending to sit beneath the evening sky. As he went, treading quietly as he might, he glanced about him, up at the clouds flaming in the west and the first stars twinkling in the east, ahead to the low gleam of the river, the finely turfed land curving down to meet it. The Shire was a lovely place, fresh and green, rounded with hills and dales; even the houses he'd seen were rounded and set into the earth rather than placed atop it. Amidst the curvaceous landscape the barracks for the King's soldiers sat upon its patch of ground looking squat and square and dark and utterly out of place as he glanced back at it.

Artung felt scarcely less out of place himself. He'd thought it would be an adventure when his captain and eldest brother Beretung had chosen him to join Ithilien's representatives among the King's Western company. Ten years Artung's elder, Beretung remembered the War of the Ring as Artung did not, and envied him the chance to see the land from whence had come the little and mighty Ringbearer. In truth the Shire was all he'd envisioned and more, as fertile as the best of Ithilien, its folk hearty and gracious, plump and cheery. And yet... although the children were curious and round-eyed, running up to the soldiers, fingering their gear and demanding to be lifted, the grown halflings were briskly friendly rather than lingering, and sometimes Artung caught a hint of fear in their eyes. They too recalled the War of the Ring, the occupation of their land by rough men of low degree. Artung's fellow soldiers seemed not to notice, as they had not noticed the wonders of the journey south through the great and terrible forest and along the gold-flowing Baranduin, and between their stolid pleasantry and the halflings' standoffish hospitality Artung felt quite alone.

He felt most alone when he looked at the halfling women, their skirts draping their rounded hips and swirling round their well-turned ankles, their plump bosoms peeping from their laced bodices, their cheeks round and pink, their eyes and lips full and bright. They were sturdy as their menfolk yet light-footed and graceful, their plumpness toothsome curvaceousness. Though halflings were of a height with children, since the War of the Ring no one would mistake them for such, and Artung could not help but feel his blood surge whenever his eye fell upon one of the lovely little halfling maidens. He tried to hide it, lest he make them fear him all the more for displaying rampant lusts, but he'd dreamed of them each of the nine nights since his arrival.

How their soft round arms might feel in his hands, how their plush little mouths might yield to his... he clenched his fist now to drive off the thought renewed, and dropped upon the riverbank, pulling off his boots and plunging his feet into the still-chilly water. It had been eight nights since they'd come to bide in this summer Shire-field along the golden River, two nights since Midsummer and the King's ceremonial meeting with the princes of the halflings, and though the days since had held fewer duties that leisure left Artung more time to think and to yearn. They had six nights remaining at the least, and Artung knew not how he'd endure. He'd had only one lover as yet, his brother's friend and seargant Taravorn, and that was over a year past by now, some months when he was eighteen. He swung his feet in the water and recalled Taravorn fondly, but with little heat; for all their nights together, Taravorn's strongest loyalties always lay with Beretung and their duties in the daytime, and he'd sent Artung on his way with a dry-eyed smile and a firm kiss.

In Minas Tirith Artung had rediscovered the grace of women, but he'd had no time aside of his duties, no friends who could make introductions to one of the closely-kept maidens, and in the end he was intended to travel onwards. In Annuminas, the city rising anew in tents and scaffolding, he'd traded smiles with a particular girl whose path kept crossing with his, but though he could recall the exact wave of the honey-gold lock that always peeked from her wimple to frame her face, he hadn't yet found courage to ask her name. Besides, he understood from his agemates that he was precocious if anything; his wiser elders told him he had all the time in the world.

Likely he did, in these days of peace, but still his blood raced in his veins, fierce and hot, till he sometimes felt he should burst or go mad. He wouldn't want to dishonor his golden-haired lass, but he longed, how he longed.

Just as he was thinking this a soft plashy sound, somehow different from the soft rustles and birdcalls of burgeoning night, made him glance up to see a hobbit lady with a lantern poling a raft of woven willow up the river. As she drew near he could see by her lanternlight and the moon that her raft also bore a basket, that she was unwrinkled with age but not a maiden either, that her hair was a warm brown caught up in a knot, tendrils falling alongside her slender neck, her shawl of fine lace, her fair face somehow familiar. She poled unhurriedly, humming a gentle song to herself, and when she reached the near bank she looked up at Artung, a sprinkle of freckles across her cheeks, her mouth a little too wide for full plumpness, her smile bright and clear up to her eyes. "May I have a hand?" she asked.

Artung's mouth had stuck fast, and though he should say, 'yes, my lady,' he could but nod, scramble to his knees, and reach out to her. She handed up her basket and then her lantern, smiling enticingly all the while, and Artung hardly knew where he set them; then she laid her warm, fine-boned hand in his, turned and braced her small weight against his grip, and tugged the raft up onto the bank. "There," she said with slightly breathless satisfaction. "Hullo, soldier lad, what's your name?"

Some hours later it was full moonrise, a thick crescent sailing across the sky, and Artung sat on the Brandywine's bank, as the halflings named it. Beside him in the grass, easy as one of the unselfconscious children, lay Mistress Pervinca Took, sister of Peregrin Took the Thain, who had been a member of the Fellowship of the Ring. She resembled him greatly, and when Artung had realized her kinship and begun to babble she'd coolly said, "he puts on his breeches one leg at a time, my dear."

Mistress Pervinca herself -- she would not let Artung call her "Mistress Took" -- was cheerful and knowing and gave Artung the sense that the world was far larger and more varied than even his travels with the Army had shown him. She fed him a variety of richly flavored little tidbits, crumbly hand-cakes flavored with sweet herb seeds and flaky hand-pies filled with honeyed fruit, small sandwiches of savory ham, milky cheese, and fragrant herbs, and a wedge of a pie made with eggs and smoked bacon. She gave him drink in a little mug she kept refilling, mouthful by mouthful of ale from a brown jug and hard cider from a red one. And as she fed him and watered him, she chatted cheerfully and astoundingly, asking him about Ithilien and Annuminas, telling him of her life in the Shire, commenting with wit and tartness on so many things.

At length, his own wits slightly fuzzed by the ale and cider, Artung told her of his hunger for touch and how beautiful she was. She laughed, propped up on her elbows, slender throat pale in the moonlight, and said, "You poor chit, 'tis a pity Men don't consider tweenhood. You could use a few years of careless fun. At the least, someone should teach you how you might please a lass and yourself without risk of catching a child. Didn't that kissing-friend of yours ever tell you what he might have done with you were you a girl?"

Artung shook his head. "He told me I was too young to be wed, and I was."

Pervinca rolled her eyes at that, shaking her head. "And so you are, but that's no reason to keep you ignorant. Look here, you know how you might get a child, at least?" At this she got up on her knees, gesturing with her hands, and described in frank language the act of marital joining; as Artung stared at her open-mouthed she laughed and went on to relate how to bring a woman pleasure with fingers and tongue, motioning over her body in a manner that made Artung envision his own fingers on her skin, his own tongue between her thighs, until his face burned like a coal.

"Do try not to be carried away on that rushing tide of hot young blood," said Pervinca, getting to her feet; struck sore with the seeming chiding, Artung caught breath to beg her pardon, and lost it in a gasp as she reached behind her head, her smile tilted as her hair tumbled down around her. "Still, don't worry too much about it; a little roughness carries the sweetness of passion." Her fine fingers pulled the lacing of her bodice free, and when it slid down her arms her breasts peeped round and full through the fine chemise.

"My lady!" Artung stirred his leaden tongue to speech at last. "My lady, what do you mean?"

"You could use a tumble, lad," she said, plainly and directly, as her skirt puddled round her feet. "Would you like to have me?" She pushed off her chemise and her underbloomers and stood before him, pale and freckled and delectable, and his member chafed against his own breeches' placket, so hard it ached.

"My lady," Artung stammered again, and Pervinca laughed, stepping from the pile of her clothes, walking up to press herself to him, her bosom to his cheek, her hands in his hair, her body warm by his. Artung's hands closed upon her skin more tightly than he meant, but she just laughed again, tilting her face to his.

 

 

[The first time he gets a little carried away; afterwards she has him go down on her, and then they have a second that's more leisurley, and then she tells him about her siege-running in the YOT and thanks him for giving her a better memory. Then sleep, sex third time before/at dawn and then she rafts away.]

['the raft is set, and she introduces himself, and scene change to talking late in the night and then kissing. Somewhere in there she lauhgs breathlessly and tells him he doesn't have to be so gentle and careful.]

[The Shire, the wide world, still bear scars from the war, etc, and aren't what he expected, and also the hobbitwomen seen from afar make him feel lonely, with their bright faces and bright dresses, and he just feels emo. Late that night Pervinca comes over on the ferry with a basket on her arm, feeds and liquors him (brandy, distilled scented pomace brandy, and blueberry wine called Long Cleeve Love Potion which leads to Pervinca relating how she teased Diamond that she used it on Pippin) (they talk, and she's surprised to hear he joined the army at 14 and has hardly seen women these five years) and seduces him, during which she says, "you can do that harder" and entices him to tup her harder. She says, "you're not a virgin, right?" and he asks, "do I seem that inexperienced?" and she says, "no, rather unjaded". Then he asks if he's the first Man she's had and she tells him about her YOT experiences and they have sex again, then snuggle. (He licks her to please her but also rouses himself so much he wants to fuck her again.) In the grey predawn they have sex once more, and she calls him a human equivalent of a tween, and he nods and kisses her, and watches her ferry herself back over and walk back.]

 

Pix: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shire_(Middle-earth>)  
<http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/LotRO_Screenshots/Shire_Windmill.jpg>  
<http://kittenslitter.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/lotro-the-shire.jpg>  
<http://www.gamehobby.net/images/products/lotr_scouring_of_the_shire.jpg>

Sky:  
<http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080112.html>

<http://rubynye.livejournal.com/259713.html?thread=3333249#t3333249>

 

When King Elessar met the Hobbit Councillors of the North Kingdom at the Brandywine Bridge, Pervinca accompanied her brother. Late at night, she took the ferry over to the far bank, where a lonely, bewildered young soldier sat trailing his feet in the River and skipping stones in the moonlight, and talked to him for two hours.

From the young soldier's POV. A sequel to the "Pay" duology, Pervinca taking a Man for pleasure/to get over that darkness.

Artung's 19.

Pervinca likens her dealing with the Men to being in battle, feeling particularly intensely alive. Her only weapons were her prettiness, her wiles, and the fact that the Ruffians wanted to smush hobbits.


End file.
